Apr 25, 2014

When [late al-Qaeda leader] Abu Musab al-Zarqawi tried to find a link between the “distant enemy” and the “near enemy,” his partisans attacked three hotels in the Jordanian capital Amman in 2005. Yet, as Jordanian society was shocked by this incident, any potential favorable social environment for the Zarqawi group — which is viewed as the most radical Salafist jihadist group in Jordan — was annulled. However, the Syrian events that started three years ago are now providing such a favorable environment in light of the increasing everyday difficulties faced by Jordanians, the inefficient political and social reform program, the presence of hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees and the sectarian conflict in the region that escalated following Hezbollah’s intervention in Syria.

This new environment in Jordan is probably what pushed the head of the Southern Command (which includes Egypt and Jordan) of Israeli military intelligence to consider, in its recent strategy report, that stability in Jordan is connected to developments in Syria and Iraq. According to this report, Israel expects “a jihadist crescent” to surround and penetrate Jordan. The report shows that Israel is preparing at the intelligence and operational levels for a potential terrorist jihadist penetration into Jordan.

The security of the Jordanian-Syrian border continues to exhaust the Jordanian state’s energy today. The Jordanian border guards carry a double burden to prevent all kinds of infiltration and smuggling. The lack of a single Syrian side to communicate with poses further dilemma. Jordan does not base its choices on the possibility that the Syrian regime will restore its control over its cities and towns. However, it also does not make its decisions based on the Syrian opposition’s progress on the ground because the opposition is not unified.

After a recent incident where Jordan’s air force was forced to destroy Syrian vehicles that attempted to infiltrate the Jordanian border, Jordanian analyst Fahd al-Khaytan said, “We will likely witness cases where the Jordanian army will be forced to carry out proactive operations, and to reposition itself in border areas with Syria, in order to cut off infiltration routes and keep smuggling gangs and radical groups away from border crossings.”

Also, the Syrian government is not currently controlling key oil and gas fields in Hasakah, Deir al-Zour and the Euphrates valley, as these areas are now under the control of the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) and Jabhat al-Nusra.