Public anger in Syria has threatened to boil over following disagreements between Amman and Damascus over Jordanian attacks on the southern Syrian regions of Deraa and Suwayda on Monday evening. Jordan said its air force had killed more than 20 ISIL (ISIS) fighters in retaliatory strikes on what it called “dens of terrorist organisations in southern Syria”, linked to suspects accused of being behind last week’s attack on a Greek Orthodox church in the kingdom, which was claimed by the group. But the next day, anger mounted in Syria as images spread of a slain grandmother and her three grandchildren.
While Jordan has launched attacks on Syria in the past, including assaults that led to civilian casualties, this latest episode seems to have captured public anger. Jordanian authorities said the attack was carried out by “extremist terrorists”. Jordan’s King Abdullah II promised to respond with an “iron fist”.
This pressure to be responsive is especially acute right now, because security and policing remain core strengths of the Jordanian state.” Jordanian authorities arrested three men connected to the attack on the church on Monday. That evening, Jordan also launched the attack on southern Syria, which it said was carried out in coordination with authorities in Damascus. But Damascus has contradicted that account.
The Syrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement that it had informed Jordan of its “complete reservation” over the attacks, and said they took place “without prior coordination or notification with the Syrian side”. An official described the strikes as “treacherous”. On the other hand, Damascus cannot afford to appear to have approved an operation that killed Syrian families.
The investigation needs to establish who communicated with whom, when, and about which target. Until then, I would avoid either assuming Syria secretly approved everything or treating the coordination as a simple misunderstanding.” The family’s bodies were recovered after they were killed by the Jordanian strike on a tent in the village of al-Taff, in the Lajat area of northeastern Deraa province. Syria’s civil defence said three other family members were wounded in the attack.
Meanwhile, in the al-Shayah farms near Nassib, in the Deraa countryside, an 80-year-old man named Riyad Karrad was also killed by a strike. Another man named Mutlaq Abu al-Khalil, 60, was killed in Shuhayb, in Suwayda’s northern countryside. Syrian customs authorities closed the Nassib border crossing with Jordan on Tuesday, before reopening it to passenger and commercial traffic on Wednesday.
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