Excerpts: ISIS advancement, Jordan concerns.'Antidote' to Hizbullah
'terrorism' June 13, 2014

+++SOURCE: Al Arabiya News 13 June ’14:”ISIS advancements, nearby Jordan
must be concerned, analysts say”, byRaed Omari
SUBJECT: ISIS advancement, Jordan concerns
QUOTES:”nearby Jordan has to be concerned, analysts argued, citing primarily
the considerable number of Jordanians fighting alongside the Islamist
militia which also has its supporters in the security-concerned kingdom.”

“Some 2,400 Jordanians are currently serving alongside Islamist militants in
Syria- over half of whom have gone to the ranks of the ISIS,Taylor Luck
(Amman-based political analyst) says, quoting estimates from Jordanian
salafist leaders”. (AP)

FULL TEXT, Amman: With Iraq's major cities falling like dominoes to
militants under the black banners of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria
(ISIS) and with al-Qaeda's affiliate turning from a "virtual" to a "real"
state, nearby Jordan has to be concerned, analysts argued, citing primarily
the considerable number of Jordanians fighting alongside the Islamist
militia which also has its supporters in the security-concerned kingdom.

On the nature of threat the ISIS is posing to Jordan, analysts and experts
in Islamist groups explained that Jordan is geographically and historically
part of the Levant, the region over which ISIS aspires to establish its
envisioned Islamic state.

In anticipation of a widespread of radical groups in neighboring countries
as witnessed in Iraq now and before that in Syria, analysts added that
Jordan has adopted a set of measures, both legally and militarily, to
counter any security spillover from the northern and eastern
terrorism-fertile Syria and Iraq.

In remarks to Al Arabiya News, Taylor Luck, Amman-based political analyst
specialized in jihadist movements, said, “Jordan's greatest national
security threat currently is neither the Syrian regime or the potential use
of chemical weapons- it is the spread of the Islamic State’s ideology and
the spillover of the jihadist civil war into Jordan."

According to Luck, Jordan has been eyeing wearily the ISIS and Jabhat
al-Nusra gains in southern Syria in recent weeks, and has tightened security
measures along the country’s 370-kilometer shared borders with Syria.

"Since late April, Jordanian authorities have imposed a new security
campaign along its borders – no longer allowing unidentified persons to
cross through its borders for fear that ISIL supporters-even Jordanians- may
enter the country- actively engaging militarily with suspected jihadists
attempting to enter the country, having estimated to have killed 12
jihadists and injured 40 others in spate clashes over the past two months,"
he said.

Luck expected Jordan to adopt a similar approach to its eastern borders with
Iraq in the wake of the ISIS's siege of Mosul, Takrit and other cities.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, a well-informed Jordanian security
source told Al Arabiya News that Jordan has recently deployed around 40,000
army personnel on the eastern and northeastern borders with Iraq and Syria
to blockade any entry of ISIS and Al Nusra fighters to its territories.

As part of its new security approach, Luck said Jordan has launched a new
crackdown on the country’s hard-line Salafist movement - said to be the
country’s largest recruiter of jihadist fighters – arresting over 100 and
referring over 40 members to the country’s state security court since the
beginning of the year.

“Jordan is taking a two-track approach in its response to the ISIL threat-
arrest supporters before they can reach Iraq and Syria, and prevent those
already fighting from returning back home.”

Some 2,400 Jordanians are currently serving alongside Islamist militants in
Syria- over half of whom have gone to the ranks of the ISIS, Luck says,
quoting estimates from Jordanian salafist leaders.

Some days following the endorsement of a new anti-terrorism law by Jordan’s
Lower House of Parliament in April, Jordan has embarked on a security
campaign in southern city of Maan, believed to be the stronghold of
Salafists recruiting people to fight along side Al Nusra and ISIL in Syria.

A key article in the amended law broadens the definition of “terrorist acts”
to include “joining or attempting to join”, the “direct and indirect
funding” of and “attempting to recruit” for “any armed group or terrorist
organization in the Kingdom and abroad”.

For Majed al-Leftawi, lawyer for the convicted Salafi Jihadist Abu Mohammad
Al Magdesi and expert in Salafist groups, Jordan for ISIS is part of the
Levant which is the militia's ultimate region of an Islamic state.

Asked how the ISIS's advancement in Iraq's cities would threaten Jordan,
al-Leftawi said, "the issue is developing hour-by-hour in Iraq with ISIS
advancing over a city after a city there. Jordan's concern over ISIS
advancements is stemmed from the considerable number of supporters the group
enjoys in the kingdom, be those prison or at homes."

Giving priority to a new wave of Iraqi refugee influx to Jordan over
security concerns, a high-ranking Jordanian official, who preferred to
remain unnamed, said that "all in place to prevent a security spillover from
Iraq but the expectation of a large numbers of Iraqis feeling violence
westward to Jordan is Amman's major concern now."

Andrew Harper, UNHCR's Representative to Jordan was quoted on local press
Thursday[22 June] as expressing the UN refugee agency's readiness to deal
with any refugee influx from Iraq, affirming that no increase in the number
of Iraqis coming to Jordan has been witnessed recently.

"Once we receive Iraqi refugees fleeing violence in their country to Jordan,
we are ready to receive them the way of course decided by the Jordanian
government."

Jordan, which is home now to more than 600,000 Syrian refugees, had received
around 500,000 Iraqis after the 2003 invasion, thousands of them are still
residing in Amman.


+++SOURCE: Naharnet (Lebanon) 13 June ’14:”Israel’s U.N. Ambassador Urges
‘Antidote’ to Fight Hizbullah ‘Terrorism”
SUBJECT: ‘Antidote’ to Hizbullah ‘Terrorism’
QUOTE:”Ambassador Prosor to U.N.: ‘We must isolate terrorist groups by
cutting of their funding and dismantling their networks’ “
FULL TEXT:Israel’s Ambassador to the U.N. Ron Prosor has accused Hizbullah
and Iran of launching a campaign of terror against the Jewish State, urging
the international community to find an “antidote” to eradicate the virus of
terrorism.

“Israelis are the targets of a terror campaign directed by the Iranian
Revolutionary Guards and Hizbullah,” Prosor told the 94th plenary meeting of
the U.N. General Assembly on Thursday.

“Iran’s fingerprints can be seen on attacks from Bulgaria to Kenya to
Thailand, where just a few weeks ago, authorities foiled a plan by Hizbullah
agents to attack Israeli tourists,” The Jerusalem Post quoted him as saying.

“When our children are not safe in their schools and our families are not
safe in malls and museums then we – as an international community – have
failed,” he said. “We have failed to stand up to terrorism and failed to
fight back the plague that threatens to overrun entire nations.”

Prosor compared terrorism to a “lethal virus,” saying “terrorist groups are
determined enemies, adapting and mutating to avoid detection.”

“We must isolate terrorist groups by cutting off their funding and
dismantling their networks.”

According to the Jerusalem Post, the diplomat also told the General Assembly
that the international community should produce an “antidote to eradicate
the virus of terrorism before it eradicates us.”

But Prosor stressed that Israel became a specialist in the field of
counter-terrorism out of the persistent need to defend its citizens against
terrorist organizations that have continuously threatened the Jewish state
since its rebirth 66 years ago.


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Sue Lerner - Associate, IMRA