Slain terrorist denied burial in home village

AMMAN — Citizens from Irbid's village of Samad barred the family of a terrorist who was killed during a security raid on Tuesday from burying their son in the village’s cemetery, residents said.

Leaked documents showed that relatives of the terrorists, who exchanged fire with the raiding force in Irbid and were killed, signed written pledges to bury their sons "silently", without prayers in mosques and without opening condolences houses.

When the word spread in Samad that one of these would be buried in their village, 15km west of Irbid, they reacted with anger and decided to ban the burial, which they apparently did. 

A Samad resident confirmed reports that the village people contacted MP Mustafa Amawi and Irbid Governor Saad Shihab and threatened to “burn the body” if the family insisted on burying the deceased in Samad, which is inhabited by more than 2,000 people. 

The reaction by the villagers came amid a wave of anti-terrorism sentiments all over Jordan, which celebrated the martyrdom of Major Rashed Zyoud, who fell during the operation that lasted for more than 10 hours.

Amawi and Shihab were not available for a comment on Saturday. 

News reports published on local websites quoted Shihab as saying that he was studying the request of Samad’s people to bury the terrorist somewhere else but not in their village.

The governor reportedly said that he was looking for solutions to bury the seven killed terrorists without triggering trouble with local residents, adding that “all the dead bodies are still in the forensic unit”. 

The residents who talked to The Jordan Times said they know very little about the dead terrorist, saying he was of a low profile and was not a social person.

A young resident, Ahmad, said he himself never heard of the terrorist’s name before or ever seen him although they were almost of the same age, in their mid-20s. 

Echoing Ahmad’s remarks, an elderly man from Samad, who preferred to remain unnamed, said he never saw the young man or his father, adding that he heard that the family of the dead terrorist moved to Samad some 10 years ago from a smaller nearby village called Zaatari.