Attack kills 3 Jordanian intelligence officers at Palestinian camp

AMMAN – Reuters

A picture taken on June 6, 2016 shows Jordanian security forces vehicles patrolling near the Jordanian intelligence agency office in the Baqaa camp north of the capital Amman following a gun attack - AFP photo

Three Jordanian intelligence officers and two other security personnel were killed in an attack on a security office in a Palestinian refugee camp on the outskirts of the Jordanian capital, a government official said on June 6. 

Jordanian television, quoting a government spokesman, described it as a terrorist attack that took place at 7 a.m., giving no further details. 

The Baqaa camp is the largest camp in Jordan, where a large percentage of the country’s over seven million population are descendants of Palestinian refugees who fled in the aftermath of the creation of Israel in 1948. 

Government spokesman Mohammad al-Momani said the attack targeted the intelligence department’s local office in the camp that houses over 70,000 refugees. Alongside the three officers, a guard and a telephone exchange operator at the office were killed. 

“Security forces are chasing these culprits and investigating the circumstances of the terrorist attack,” Momani said. 

Earlier this year a large security operation was mounted in the northern city of Irbid in which several Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) sympathizers were killed in a shootout. 

The security authorities later said they had carried out a pre-emptive strike against a group of militants linked to Syria who were planning suicide attacks on shopping malls and government buildings.