Army arrests 22 suspects attempting to cross into Jordan from Syria

AMMAN — An authorised source at the Jordan Armed Forces (JAF) said Sunday that border guard units have arrested 22 infiltrators from Syria within the past 48 hours, 21 of whom are Arabs and one Jordanian.

The source added that two of the arrestees were wounded, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported. 

The army statement did not say if the two were injured during clashes with border guards or the civil war raging across the border.

However, sources told The Jordan Times that the army clashed on Sunday with suspected jihadists along the Syrian border, marking the second such an incident in less than three days.

According to security sources, the JAF traded fire with a group of “unidentified individuals” illegally attempting to cross into Jordan from Syria early Sunday.

The suspected militants reportedly turned back to Syrian territory after the firefight, the sources said.

According to Islamist sources, the men were part of a group of 10 Jordanian fighters allied with Al Qaeda-linked Jabhat Al Nusra attempting to return to Jordan “to receive medical treatment”.

The clashes reportedly left one dead, according to sources within the hard-line Salafist movement, who refused to be named or reveal the identity of the man due to security concerns. 

The clashes marked the second incident along Jordan’s 370km shared border with Syria in less than 72 hours.

On Friday, the military targeted four vehicles attempting to cross into Jordan in a missile strike after the group failed to respond to “warning shots”, Petra reported. 

The incidents come as part of an ongoing security crackdown along the country’s northern border which come as a response to recent gains by Islamist militias in southern Syria.