Jordan announces thwarting an attempt by militants to infiltrate from Syria

The Jordanian Armed Forces announced today (Saturday) that one of the border guard units of the Northern Military District thwarted, yesterday evening (Friday), an infiltration attempt by an armed group coming from Syria, whose members are estimated at about 14 people, according to Reuters.

The armed forces added, “The group tried to infiltrate under heavy cover of fire and engage directly with our forces. The border guards acted immediately and decisively in accordance with the established rules of engagement, which led to the infliction of numerous human losses on the armed group, while the rest of its members fled towards the Syrian depths.”

This comes after the Jordanian Air Force launched raids in southern Syria on Tuesday, which Amman said killed more than 20 ISIS members, in response to shooting in a church in Karak in southern Jordan that killed 9 people and injured 25 others, according to the Jordanian authorities.

The Jordanian authorities confirmed that the three church attackers, who were Jordanians, were linked to organizations based in southern Syria, where they launched their raids.

In turn, the Syrian Foreign Ministry announced, on Wednesday evening, that the Jordanian ambassador had been summoned and handed over to him “a memorandum of protest against the backdrop of the Jordanian bombing that targeted civilian sites in Daraa Governorate.”

A Palestinian was injured today (Saturday) as a result of being beaten by settlers in the village of Duma, south of Nablus in the northern West Bank.

The Palestinian News and Information Agency (Wafa) quoted the head of the Duma Village Council, Suleiman Dawabsha, as saying, “Colonists attacked a number of citizens in the Al-Shajara area, east of the village, and severely beat them, which led to one of them sustaining head injuries.”

He added, "The occupation forces stormed the village, closed its main entrance, and detained an ambulance that came to transport the injured citizen."

The file of the explosives shipment that was seized at the Dahr al-Baydar checkpoint in Lebanon took a judicial course, after the government commissioner at the military court, Judge Claude Ghanem, charged 13 people belonging to Hezbollah with crimes of assaulting internal state security, violating government decisions, possessing weapons and explosives, and forming “illegal associations” whose goal is to undermine the state’s authority and prestige.

The prosecution included eight people known by names, including the two detainees, Haitham Amhaz and Ali Al-Kurdi, in addition to five others known by their surnames only. Ghanem referred the file to the first military investigating judge, Ghada Abu Alwan, to complete the investigations and issue the necessary arrest warrants.

The penalties stipulated in the alleged articles reach ten years of hard labor, while the file of referring the case to the Judicial Council continues to cause disagreement within the government, after Hezbollah announced its ownership of the shipment and demanded its return.