Why Jordan is braced for challenging security scenarios.
Amid escalating geopolitical tensions in the Middle East, Jordan is looking to bolster its defenses against possible incursions by Iran-backed militias on its borders.
The new approach follows a series of attacks against US military bases across the Gulf, culminating in a drone assault on a logistics support site of the Jordanian Defense Network near the Syrian border on Jan. 28, which left three American soldiers dead and more than 40 others injured.
In a press briefing, Sabrina Singh, Pentagon deputy press secretary, said that the Iran-backed Iraqi Kataib Hezbollah militia was responsible for the attack on Tower 22.
“We know that Iran is behind it. And certainly, as we’ve said before, Iran continues to arm and equip these groups to launch these attacks, and we will certainly hold them responsible,” she said, noting that eight of the 40 injured had to be evacuated for treatment.
Jordan’s government “condemned the terrorist attack that targeted an outpost on the border with Syria, killing three US soldiers,” in a statement issued via the Petra news agency.
Although the deaths at the Jordan-based US output were the first American military casualties since the start of the Israeli military offensive on Hamas-run Gaza in October last year, for Jordanians, the attack was anything but out of the ordinary.
With Iraq plagued by instability and sectarianism and Syria mired in a decade-long civil war, Jordan’s northern border region has become a breeding ground for militias.
Baraa Shiban, an associate fellow at the UK’s Royal United Services Institute, says that those monitoring the region have been seeing “cross-border attacks for some time.”
He told Arab News: “If you are in that part of the world, the activity of these groups is known about. Press attention on them has increased since the American soldiers were killed, but the number of attacks has been largely constant.
“Those attacks are typically a series of skirmishes that sometimes escalate and sometimes die down, but they are always simmering in the background.”
Nor are the skirmishes simply the result of efforts to attack military installations, with the militias having turned Jordan into a major transit route for one of their key funding efforts, namely the trade in the multi-billion-dollar Syrian-made amphetamine Captagon.
“Jordan has become particularly concerned by the increase in drug-smuggling activities taking place across its borders,” Shiban said.
“These smuggling activities are essential for the groups if they are to fund their ongoing military assaults. If Jordan could successfully curb the activities, the groups would be starved of a major income stream that helps to keep them alive.”
The amounts involved are staggering: In December, Jordanian authorities seized 5 million pills and, with a single pill worth $12-25, a combined value of between $60-125 million.
Jordan has stepped up its no-tolerance policy for cross-border drug smuggling in recent years, last year announcing that it would use military force in Syria to curb drug trafficking across its borders.
In May 2023, Jordan carried out an airstrike in a village in Syria’s southern Sweida governorate, killing the so-called Captagon kingpin Merhi Al-Ramthan.
