‘Jordan prepared to defeat Al Qaeda’

US President Barack Obama made a statement on Iraq a few days ago, elaborating on the dangers that are associated with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).

The American president said Jordan is one of the countries that will be targeted by ISIL if the extremist group is not defeated now in Iraq.

Moreover, many US congressmen, senators and army generals, including Gen. Garner and Senator Lindsey Graham (R, SC) voiced great alarm, saying that if ISIL is allowed to win against the government of Baghdad, its next step will be Jordan and the army lines along the Jordan Valley, facing the Israeli army and the adjacent settlements.

It is true that ISIL has an ideological agenda that thrives on territorial expansion, especially if it is coloured by popular slogans attractive to the crowd like: Palestine, Jerusalem and Al Aqsa Mosque.

Moreover, ISIL is the wealthiest terror organisation in the world, with nearly $2 billion in the coffers of its leader, Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi, who told his marine prison guards on his release from Abu Ghraib: “Shall see you in New York.”

But the Jordanian front is solid enough to defeat Baghdadi the same way it handled Abu Musab Zarqawi, who had threatened Jordan and was killed by a team of our special forces in his hideout in the Iraqi village of Baqouba on June 7, 2006, along with all the second generation of Al Qaeda leaders.

As an indication of Jordan’s self confidence, Abu Mohammad Al Maqdissi, one of Al  Qaeda’s main ideologues and leaders, was released from jail last week, having served his entire sentence.

Another ideologue and leader, Abu Qatada, is expected to be released soon, as the Jordanian courts are at the moment studying the final evidence supplied by the British authorities by whom he was handed over to spend his prison term in his home country.

It is no longer a secret that Al Qaeda has a branch in Jordan. The main spokesman is Abu Sayyaf, Mohammad Al Shalabi, who used to live in Maan, but moved to Amman recently.

He admitted that his group has nearly 2,000 jihadists in Syria, fighting against President Bashar Assad. 

Shalabi claims that his followers here are no more than 5,000 salafist jihadists. Saad Huneiti, another Islamic activist, was in Syria, trying to reconcile Jordanians fighting for ISIL and jihadists with Al Nusra, with no success.

Jordan has many reasons to be confident when it comes to Al Qaeda, ISIL and other Islamic jihadists.

One is the cohesiveness of the Jordanian society, which lacks in Iraq. Another is the professionalism of our security personnel and high alertness of our special forces, which guarantees the ultimate security of the Kingdom.

The ISIL ideology is alien to our society, while in Iraq, 12 million Sunnis who felt marginalised and persecuted by Premier Nouri Al Maliki’s Shiite Dawa party were receptive to it.

Jordan is well prepared and equipped to give the third generation of Baghdadi’s Al Qaeda the same deathblow it gave Zarqawi’s generation.