By Taylor Luck

KARAMA BORDER CROSSING - Stringent security measures are now a common feature at the Karama border crossing, through which hundreds of travellers enter and leave Jordan each day, many in trucks and trailers laden with cargo.

“Two years ago, none of this was here,” said a senior security official who identified himself as Abu Tareq, adding that the measures were long overdue.

According to the official, prior to 2006 there were only a handful of border staff, but the terrorist attacks, carried out by Iraqi nationals, against three Amman hotels in November 2005 were a wake-up call.

Now travellers entering the Kingdom from Iraq undergo rigorous inspections in order “to weed out those entering with ill-intentions”.

At three separate inspection points, border officials meticulously check vehicles, passengers and cars.

Here in the eastern desert, on the border of a strife-torn country, almost anything can happen, according to the officials.

“When you stop a car or trailer, you never know what you’re going to find,” one border official said, adding that some vehicles conceal cigarettes, narcotics, explosives and even stowaways.

There is also more to look for as electronic detectors determine the level of radiation on the body of a truck and its contents.

According to Abu Tareq, years of conflict have polluted parts of Iraq causing dust and mud from certain areas to emanate radiation. The border security allows drivers to wash off their trucks before being scanned a second time.

The most common products containing radioactive elements that enter the border are agricultural goods, as years of warfare have contaminated Iraqi soil.

Border officials had to deny entry to Iraqi trucks carrying dates, as their radiation levels were too high, he noted.

“You can't even trust the food coming out of Iraq - it also poses a danger,” Abu Tareq remarked.

After the radiation scan, border personnel gauge the vehicles' tyre pressure, because if it is abnormal, there is most likely something hidden in them such as explosives or drugs.

For the second phase of inspection, officers with drug and bomb-sniffing dogs examine the vehicle, and inspect the car and all the driver’s belongings.

While trucks and vehicles are given a full scan in a warehouse during the third stage, the final, perhaps toughest, test is at the immigration counter.

Here, where 80 per cent of the travellers entering the Kingdom are Iraqis, people anxiously wait as their passports and documents are meticulously examined.

According to passport official Abu Salam, in his 20 years of experience, Iraqi passports prove to be the most difficult to process.

A common problem is the pictures on older passports, which can easily be dissolved with chemicals and replaced with new ones.

The worst, according to him, are the handwritten ‘S’ series passports, which were introduced following the US-led invasion in March 2003.

This model was deemed invalid by many countries due to substandard features that make it vulnerable to alteration, such as lack of bar codes and digital encoding.

Many of these “valid” passports can be bought off the streets in Baghdad for $20, Abu Salam remarked.

“It’s a lucrative business in Iraq, as many people who want to leave the conflict are left without alternatives,” he noted.

In May this year, the Interior Ministry announced that it will stop allowing Iraqis with “S” series passport to enter the Kingdom at the end of this month.

In order to address this problem, the Iraqi government issued the new “G” series passports. With digital encoding, a barcode hologram imprinted on the picture and a watermark, the new passports are far superior to their easily forged predecessors.

Due to its success, the Iraqi government announced earlier this year that all non-”G” series travel documents would be obsolete by the end of 2008.

But despite the many upgrades, the “G” series is still forgeable, Abu Salam said, holding an example in his hand.

“The information is right. The seal and barcode is right. But this person is not Iraqi,” he said.

The passport holder was actually a citizen of Saudi Arabia who had inserted his picture into the passport and somehow got a forged hologram.

A member of the Abu Nidal terrorist organisation in Iraq, the passport holder’s intention was to carry out attacks in the Kingdom, the official said.

He noted that it was the slight ripples in the plastic covering which led them to suspect that the passport had been tampered with. Further investigation and bio-scans confirmed this.

Despite the massive challenges he faces every day to keep Jordan’s borders secure and safe, he still empathises with Iraqis entering the Kingdom.

As a result of the intense sectarian conflict, many Iraqis are unable to go to Baghdad to get passports as it is too dangerous, he noted.

“They’re only coming here to get away from the violence. But how can we tell the difference between the humanitarian cases and terrorists? It’s just not possible,” he added.