Page 9 - atoday
P. 9
WORLD NEWS 9
Thursday 3 March 2016
Jordan: 7 killed in raid had ties to IS, planned attacks
OMAR AKOUR A Jordanian officer was Jordanian security forces secure Hakama street during a raid in downtown Irbid, north of Amman,
Associated Press killed in the clashes, along Jordan, Wednesday, March 2, 2016. Men killed in armed clashes with Jordanian special forces
IRBID, Jordan (AP) — Seven with the seven wanted had ties to the Islamic State extremist group and had planned attacks on military and civilian
men killed in armed clash- men. The intelligence ser- targets in the kingdom, the country’s intelligence service said Wednesday.
es with Jordanian special vice said 13 suspects linked
forces had ties to the Islam- to the group had been ar- (AP Photo/Raad Adayleh)
ic State extremist group rested in Irbid in previous
and had planned attacks raids, but did not say when facade was blackened. ly active in the city in the lieve graves should not be
on military and civilian tar- those took place. Irbid Mayor Hussein Bani past two years. They were marked, he said.
gets in the kingdom, the “I heard an exchange Hani said followers of a suspected, among other “Security measures were
country’s intelligence ser- of fire and the sound of hard-line stream of Islam things, of vandalizing cem- beefed up in the city of Ir-
vice said Wednesday. helicopters flying above have become increasing- eteries because they be- bid since then,” he said. q
The deadly confrontations, our house,” area resident
sparked by an arrest raid, Ahmed al-Jamrah said
took place late Tuesday in of the raid. “We couldn’t
the northern city of Irbid. sleep because of the
The men killed in the raid shooting and the loud ex-
wore explosives belts, and plosions.”
weapons and explosives Jordanian Prime Minister
were found at the scene, Abdullah Ensour told par-
according to the intelli- liament that the operation
gence agency. ended at 3 a.m. Wednes-
The agency did not elabo- day. He said that extrem-
rate on the fugitives’ ties to ists “are trying to reach our
IS or provide details about country which is stronger
their alleged plans. How- and more solid than they
ever, the night-time opera- think.”
tion in downtown Irbid, ac- In downtown Irbid, secu-
companied by the sound rity forces on Wednesday
of explosions and gunfire, sealed off the area around
underscored the potential the three-story residential
threat to Jordan by ex- building where the fugitives
tremists. had been holed up. The
The pro-Western kingdom
is part of a U.S.-led mili- Iraq signs deal to repair, maintain key Mosul dam
tary coalition against IS in
neighboring Syria and SINAN SALAHEDDIN cause of the ongoing fight- but said it needed to be es retook the dam. Since
Iraq. Security forces have Associated Press ing between Iraqi forces “as quickly as possible.” then, efforts to enforce the
also cracked down on BAGHDAD (AP) — Iraq and the IS extremist group, The dam was built on the dam’s foundations have
suspected IS sympathizers signed a deal with an Ital- which controls large swaths Tigris River in the early 1980s not been up to full levels,
in Jordan. Some of those ian company on Wednes- of northern and western on unstable ground where in part because the IS mili-
expressing support for the day to repair and maintain Iraq. the earth underneath it is tants control the nearby
group on social media its largest dam, near the The contract, worth constantly being eroded factory that produces the
have been sent to prison northern, Islamic State- €273-million contract or by water. From the day it concrete for the dam.
by military courts. held city of Mosul, which is about $296 million, was was inaugurated, mainte- Although warnings of pos-
In the Irbid raid, troops in danger of catastrophic signed on Wednesday in nance crews have had to sible collapse first started
tracked suspected mili- collapse, a government Baghdad with Italy’s Trevi continuously pour cement back in 2006, when a U.S.
tants to a residential build- spokesman said. group, government spokes- under its foundation in what Army Corps of Engineers re-
ing near the city center, The Mosul Dam grabbed man, Saad al-Hadithi, told is known as “grouting.” port called it “the most dan-
surrounded it and opened headlines recently amid The Associated Press. Things worsened when IS gerous dam in the world,”
fire with automatic weap- fears it could collapse due Al-Hadithi wouldn’t give overran the dam and held those warnings stepped up
ons when the suspects re- to neglect and lack of a specific timeframe for it for several weeks in 2014 recently amid the deterio-
fused to surrender, the in- needed maintenance be- when the work would start, until U.S.-backed Iraqi forc- rating situation.q
telligence agency said.
