Jordan arrests suspect of Al Baqa’a attack

Ahmed Abbas
2 Min Read

Jordanian authorities have arrested the suspected perpetrator in the attack on an intelligence office in Al Baqa’a refugee camp, which led to the killing of five personnel.

According to a statement released by the government spokesperson and state minister for media affairs, Mohammad Al Momani, the perpetrator is expected to be a lone wolf and investigations are still ongoing.

Civilians helped police arrest the suspect near a mosque in Al-Sleehy area, a few kilometres away from the incident site.

The suspect holds Jordanian citizenship, according to state owned Al-Rai newspaper.

The attacker killed five people including three intelligence officers and two employees in the intelligence office.

One low-ranking police officer was shot during the arresting of the suspect who was armed, and he remains in serious condition.

Local websites in Jordan reported that the 22-year-old suspect was imprisoned in 2012 as he attempted to recruit people from the camp to Jaish Al-Islam organisation.

A massive search operation began after the incident to arrest the suspects.

Jordan is considered a safe country, seperatef from the turmoil of neighbours Iraq and Syria, and has a large population of refugees.

The Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned the attack and expressed Egypt’s condolences to the families of the victims.

The ministry asserted in an official statement Egypt’s support of Jordan in fighting terrorism.

Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas described the attack as “proof of the criminal behaviour of terrorist groups” who do not represent Islam.

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Ahmed Abbas is a journalist at DNE’s politics section. He previously worked as Egypt based reporter for Correspondents.org, and interned as a broadcast journalist at Deutsche Welle TV in Berlin. Abbas is a fellow of Salzburg Academy of Media and Global Change. He holds a Master’s Degree of Journalism and New Media from Jordan Media Institute. He was awarded by the ICFJ for best public service reporting in 2013, and by the German foreign office for best feature in 2014.
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