Jordan hunted down terrorists who were on the run and who had fled to a desert location near the border of Saudi Arabia and Iraq. In an operation, the Jordanian Public Security Department, or PSD, said on Sunday they had neutralized three men wanted on terror charges. The men had opened fire on the police.
According to reports in Al-Ain and Arab News two of the men had recently been held at a “rehabilitation” center and were supposed to be moving away from extremist tendencies. A third man was linked to the “Al-Husseiniya cell” and was involved in the murder of Col. Abdul Razzaq Al-Dalabeeh on Dec. 16 last year in the southern city of Maan. That murder happened during protests against fuel prices.
Tracking and locating the terrorists
The special police force had tracked the men to the southeastern border area. This is an area that is extremely rural and usually would be difficult to find wanted men hiding there. The men were armed, the reports said. After the men had escaped the police and security forces worked for several days to find them.
The Al-Ain report says security forces raided several locations and narrowed down the search to an empty desert area. The hiding area of “the wanted persons was located hundreds of meters from the southeastern border strip of the Kingdom in a very rugged area, and a specially trained security force was equipped to deal with these difficult conditions, and the team deployed in the vicinity of the area on foot, and began combing in search of them,” Al-Ain noted.
The Jordanian forces surrounded the men and engaged them. After the men fired at the officers they were killed. “The firearms they used to resist the security forces, indicating that the identity of the three wanted persons was confirmed by technical and laboratory methods and examinations, and their bodies were shown to their families who recognized them.”