Day 1,126: What just happened on the Jordan-Syria border?
Today is Day 1,126 of the Syria conflict.
Mystifying news this morning. The Jordanian military has released a statement saying its warplanes attacked a convoy of vehicles attempting to enter the country from Syria around 10:30 a.m. local time. The Syrian military, following this statement, has said that those vehicles weren't theirs. So whose were they? And what happened? Jordan may be helping the US and Saudi Arabia to arm Syrian rebels, but, as Reuters points out, it formally opposes military intervention and has "sought to distance itself from calls to bring down Assad." Jordan still does business with Damascus.
The Jordanian military statement is extremely vague. It doesn't say where on the border the incident occurred (as you can see on the map above, it's a fairly long border), nor does it say whether in fact the vehicles were on Syrian or Jordanian soil when they were struck. We don't even know the number of vehicles or whether there were any casualties. It just says that the vehicles were "camouflaged," that they were "[trying] to cross into the Kingdom illegally through a tough terrain," that they didn't respond to warning shots, and that the vehicles were subsequently "destroyed" by the Royal Jordanian Air Force.
Reuters reports, as context, that the US has given Jordan "millions of dollars" in the past two years "to beef up its boundaries with Syria," and that "Amman has long been concerned that any overt support of the Syrian insurgency could trigger retribution against the kingdom by Assad's powerful security forces." In other words: Maybe Jordan was feeling jumpy about retribution from Damascus after that big New York Times story on how the Jordanian government is handing out weapons to rebels in Amman.
Then again, maybe that had nothing to do with it. If the trucks really weren't from the Syrian government, then did Jordan just take out some of the rebels it's been trying to support?
The conflict continues.
The story you just read is available to read for free because thousands of listeners and readers like you generously support our nonprofit newsroom. Every day, the reporters and producers at The World are hard at work bringing you human-centered news from across the globe. But we can’t do it without you: We need your support to ensure we can continue this work for another year.
When you make a gift of $10 or more a month, we’ll invite you to a virtual behind-the-scenes tour of our newsroom to thank you for being with The World.