Jordan has to live with increasing threats as Syria war rages — pundit

AMMAN — Jordan has no choice but to live with the security threats stemming from regional instability, a pundit said to the Jordan Times on Saturday.

In reaction to Friday's discovery of missile shrapnel in northern parts of the country, strategic analyst Rt. Major General Fayez Dweiri said: "This is a violation of Jordan’s airspace from both the Israeli and the Syrian sides." 

Highlighting the threats caused by military exchanges between the two foes, the analyst stated: "Jordan does not possess the military capability to prevent such attacks."

He added: "The Kingdom has to live with this situation. What it can do is to manage the situation, to neutralise any threats as much as it can under the circumstances."

The Israeli retaliatory missile launches is the most serious incident between Israel and Syria since the Syrian civil war began six years ago.

In April 2016, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had admitted for the first time that Israel had attacked dozens of convoys transporting weapons in Syria “destined for Hizbollah”.

For Dweiri, “Israel and Syria are still technically at war. As long as the Syrian crisis continues, we are likely to witness similar incidents.” 

He highlighted the risks for Jordan standing in between these exchanges.

According to Israeli sources, quoted by Reuters, the incident came after an exchange of missiles between Syrian and Israeli forces, where Israel was targeting a mobile Hizbollah target. 

On Friday, missile shrapnel fell in uninhabited areas in Irbid and the Jordan Valley, a source from the Jordan Armed Forces-Arab Army (JAF) said. 

Technical departments at JAF and other security institutions removed the debris from populated areas, the source said, adding that there were no human casualties, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.

Irbid Governor Radwan Otoum on Friday announced that two “cylindrical objects” fell in Irbid without causing any injury.

One of the objects that fell in Al Hay Al Sharqi (the east quarter of the city), while the other landed in a field in the town of Inbeh of the Northern Mazar district, causing slight damages, Otoum told Petra.

Reuters reported that the Israeli military said it shot down one of numerous anti-aircraft missiles during an air force operating in Syria, adding that such incidents spilling over into neighbouring countries were rare.

Rocket sirens had sounded at dawn on Friday in Israeli settlements in the Jordan Valley in the occupied West Bank and two Reuters witnesses heard an explosion a few minutes later.