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Jordan Foils Suspected Iranian Arms Plot as Kingdom Caught in Iran-Israel Shadow War
Demonstrators attend a protest in support of Palestinians in Gaza, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Amman, Jordan, May 10, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Alaa Al Sukhni
Jordan has foiled a suspected Iranian-led plot to smuggle weapons into the US-allied kingdom to help opponents of the ruling monarchy carry out acts of sabotage, according to two Jordanian sources with knowledge of the matter.
The weapons were sent by Iranian-backed militias in Syria to a cell of the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan that has links to the military wing of Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, the people told Reuters. The cache was seized when members of the cell, Jordanians of Palestinian descent, were arrested in late March, they said.
The alleged plot and arrests, reported here for the first time, come at a time of sky-high tensions in the Middle East, with an American-backed Israel at war in Gaza with Hamas, part of Iran’s “Axis of Resistance” network of proxy groups built up over decades to oppose Israel.
In a statement on Wednesday, Hamas said it had “no ties to any acts targeting Jordan” and that it only sought to target Israel.
The two Jordanian sources, who requested anonymity to discuss security matters, declined to say what acts of sabotage were allegedly being planned, citing ongoing investigations and covert operations.
They said the plot’s aim was to destabilize Jordan, a country that could become a regional flashpoint in the Gaza crisis as it hosts a US military base and shares borders with Israel as well as Syria and Iraq, both home to Iranian-backed militias.
The sources didn’t specify what weapons were seized in the March raid, though said in recent months security services have thwarted numerous attempts by Iran and its allied groups to smuggle in arms including Claymore mines, C4 and Semtex explosives, Kalashnikov rifles, and 107mm Katyusha rockets.
Most of the clandestine flow of arms into the country has been bound for the neighboring West Bank Palestinian territory, according to the Jordanian sources. However, some of the weapons — including those seized in March — were intended for use in Jordan by the Brotherhood cell allied to Hamas militants, they said.
“They hide these weapons in pits called dead spots, they take their location via GPS and photograph their location and then instruct men to retrieve them from there,” said one of the sources, an official with knowledge of security matters, referring to the modus operandi of the smugglers.
The Muslim Brotherhood is a transnational Islamist movement, of which Hamas is an offshoot founded in the 1980s. The movement says it does not advocate violence, and Jordan‘s Brotherhood has operated legally in the kingdom for decades.
Jordanian authorities believe Iran and its allied terrorist groups like Hamas and Lebanon’s Hezbollah are trying to recruit young, radical members of the kingdom’s Brotherhood to their anti-Israel, anti-US cause in a bid to expand the Tehran’s regional network of aligned forces, according to the two sources.
A senior representative of Jordan‘s Muslim Brotherhood confirmed that some of its members were arrested in March in possession of weapons but said whatever they did was not approved by the group and that he suspected they were smuggling arms to the West Bank rather than planning acts in Jordan.
“There is dialogue between the Brotherhood and the authorities. They know if there are mistakes it’s not the MB, only individuals and not MB policy,” said the representative, asking not to be named due to the sensitivity of the matter.
Another senior figure in the Brotherhood, who also requested anonymity, told Reuters the arrested cell members had been recruited by Hamas chief Saleh al-Arouri, who masterminded the Palestinian group’s operations in the West Bank from exile in Lebanon. Arouri was killed by a drone strike in Beirut in January in an attack widely attributed to Israel.
Spokespeople for the Jordanian government and the US Department of Defense declined to comment for this article, while the Iranian foreign ministry wasn’t immediately available. Israeli officials from the prime minister’s office and foreign ministry didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
Over the past year, Jordan has said it has foiled many attempts by infiltrators linked to pro-Iranian militias in Syria who it says have crossed its borders with rocket launchers and explosives, adding that some of the weapons managed to get through undetected. Iran has denied being behind such attempts.
IN A FIX: JORDAN‘S KING ABDULLAH
Jordan‘s King Abdullah is walking a tightrope.
Most of his 11 million people are of Palestinian origin, because Jordan took in millions of Palestinian refugees fleeing the nascent state of Israel when neighboring Arab countries invaded the Jewish state in 1948. The current war in Gaza has put him in a tough position, struggling to reconcile support for the Palestinian cause with a long-standing US alliance and decades-old recognition of Israel.
The war has sparked widespread public anger, with calls by protesters to cut ties with Israel and street demonstrations erupted in recent weeks.
Last month, after Jordan joined a US-led effort to help Israel in downing salvos of drones and missiles fired by Iran, critics posted concocted images on social media of the king wrapped in an Israeli flag with comments such as “traitor” and “Western puppet.”
The disconnect between the government’s position and public sentiment has never been more pronounced in the wake of the shooting down of the drones, according to Jordanian journalist Bassam Badari.
“There was discontent,” he said. “Jordan used to skillfully stand at an equal distance from all the countries in the region, but with its intervention Jordan aligned itself with the American axis.”
Adding to Abdullah’s concerns, any tension with the Brotherhood could also carry risks, said two Jordanian politicians who requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter. The group commands wide popular support in the country.
Jordanian authorities have not spoken publicly about the alleged weapons plot and the arrests.
One of the two Jordanian sources with knowledge of the alleged plot said intelligence officials had called in 10 senior Brotherhood figures to inform them that they arrested a cell that acted as a bridge between their movement and Hamas.
‘NO SUCH THING AS A JORDAN OPTION’
The Jordanian decision to join Western powers in the downing of Iranian drones bound for Israel was partly driven by fears among officials that the kingdom could be sucked into Iran’s strategic struggle against Israel, according to Saud Al Sharafat, a former brigadier-general in the Jordanian General Intelligence Directorate.
“The Iranians have instructions to recruit Jordanians and penetrate the Jordan arena through agents,” he added. “Their recruitment efforts span all segments of society.”
Another motivating force for Jordan, according to many officials and diplomats in the region, was the unprecedented attack on a US military base in Jordan in January by Iran-aligned groups based in Iraq, which left three US soldiers dead and 40 injured. The attack was reportedly in support of Hamas in its war with Israel.
A diplomat close to Tehran said the Iranian ambition to establish a proxy foothold in Jordan went back to Qassem Soleimani, the commander of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards who was killed by the US in 2020.
Soleimani believed that given Jordan‘s strong ties with the US and the West, building up an allied group there capable of fighting Israel was crucial to Tehran’s strategic ascendancy in the region, the diplomat told Reuters.
The hostility between Iran and Jordan dates back to 2004, in the wake of the US-led invasion of Iraq, when King Abdullah accused Iran of trying to create a “Shi’ite crescent” to expand its regional power.
King Abdullah defended his decision to shoot down the drones as an act of self-defense, not carried out for the benefit of Israel. He warned that “Jordan will not be a battlefield for any party.”
The military intervention also aimed to signal to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government that Jordan was a crucial buffer zone for regional security, according to the two Jordanian politicians.
The Jordanian monarchy supports the establishment of a Palestinian state. While some right-wing politicians in Israel have envisaged Jordan becoming an alternative Palestinian state, King Abdullah has repeatedly warned that there is no such thing as a “Jordan option.”
“The official position is that a two-state solution is not only in Palestinians’ interest,” said Marwan Muasher, a former Jordanian foreign minister who is vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a Washington-based think-tank.
“It is also in Jordan‘s interests because it will establish a Palestinian state on Palestinian soil rather than a state on Jordan‘s soil.”
The post Jordan Foils Suspected Iranian Arms Plot as Kingdom Caught in Iran-Israel Shadow War first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Vancouver police raid a home linked to the director of Samidoun—which is now a terrorist entity in Canada
Vancouver police arrested and released one person at the home of Charlotte Kates, director of the terror group Samidoun, in a dramatic raid on Nov. 14. The raid was conducted […]
The post Vancouver police raid a home linked to the director of Samidoun—which is now a terrorist entity in Canada appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.
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Trump Won A Majority of Votes In Heavily-Jewish New York City Precincts, Election Data Claims
Republican presidential candidate and former US President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally at the Forum River Center in Rome, Georgia, US, March 9, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Alyssa Pointer
President-elect Donald Trump won an overwhelming majority of the votes in New York City (NYC) precincts that were at least a quarter Jewish, according to a data analysis by the Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC), a prominent Washington DC-based political group.
RJC presented data on Friday affirming the notion that Trump won a higher proportion of the NYC Jewish vote than in previous elections, potentially signaling an ideological shift in the traditionally-liberal voting bloc. According to RJC data, Trump received the “overwhelming” majority of votes in precincts with a Jewish population of at least 25%.
Trump’s 2024 performance among Jews in NYC seems to mark a substantial improvement over the 2020 and 2016 elections, contests in which the president-elect struggled to make inroads among Jewish voters.
Voting data from the 2024 election also indicate that there was a significant shift among Jewish voters in Pennsylvania. President-elect Trump also enjoyed greater success in heavily-Jewish enclaves of deep-blue cities such as Chicago and Los Angeles, according to data compiled by the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners and the Los Angeles Times, respectively.
Trump’s increased success among Jewish voters in the Big Apple comes amid simmering anger over surging antisemitism across the country.
In the year following the Hamas slaughter of roughly 1200 people throughout southern Israel, college campuses have become embroiled in an unrelenting onslaught of protests opposing the Jewish state. Moreover, many Jews have expressed dissatisfaction with the Biden administration’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war, suggesting that the president has not been a firm ally of the Jewish state.
Over the past year, NYC has been ravaged with raucous, often-violent anti-Israel demonstrations and an unrelenting spate of antisemitic hate crimes.
Columbia University, one of the most prestigious higher education institutions in the world, became a poster-child for the anti-Israel campus movement, erecting encampments and holding protests calling for the destruction of the Jewish state. Many NYC public schools came embroiled in scandal after teachers presented students with lesson plans that accused Israel of committing “apartheid” and “genocide” against the Palestinians.
Though most national Democrats continue to express support for Israel’s right to defend itself from Hamas terrorists, some figures in the party have, over the past year, adopted a more adversarial posture toward the Jewish state, often citing the humanitarian situation in Gaza as a key reason.
High-profile Democrats such as Sen. Elizabeth Warren (MA) have suggested that Israel has perpetrated a “genocide” against Palestinians in Hamas-ruled Gaza, where Israel has been waging a military campaign targeting terrorists since the Oct. 7 atrocities. Earlier this year, a group of dozens of Democratic lawmakers, including former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), sent a letter to US President Joe Biden, urging him to “reconsider” approving offensive arms shipments to Israel.
Over the course of his campaign, Trump repeatedly touted his support for the Jewish state during his singular term in office. While courting Jewish voters, Trump has boasted about his administration’s work in fostering the Abraham Accords, promising to resume efforts to strengthen them once he retains office in January.
Trump also recognized Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights, a strategic region on Israel’s northern border previously controlled by Syria, and also moved the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, recognizing the city as the Jewish state’s capital.
The post Trump Won A Majority of Votes In Heavily-Jewish New York City Precincts, Election Data Claims first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Attempted Robbery of Jewish Man in Brooklyn Puts Orthodox Community on Edge
Screenshot of masked men who attempted to rob Jewish man in Crown Heights, Brooklyn on Thursday. Photo: Screenshot
The Jewish community in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, New York was the target of another attack on Thursday evening, as three men attempted to rob a Hasidic man after stalking him through the neighborhood.
Footage of the incident was shared on X/Twitter by Yaacov Behrman, liaison of Chabad Headquarters and founder of the Jewish Future Alliance (JFA) nonprofit. It shows the men, whose faces were concealed by hoods and ski masks, chasing the man into the street and through the neighborhood after attempting to accost him.
No arrests have been made.
“He doesn’t give in easily, and I don’t think they got anything,” Behrman tweeted. “The Jewish Future Alliance is deeply concerned not only about the increase in crime but also the fact that, once again, the perpetrators were wearing masks. We need to reinstate mask laws.”
The explosion of an antisemitic hate crime spree in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn has set the Orthodox Jewish community on edge in recent weeks.
Last Tuesday, two men beat a middle-aged Hasidic man after he refused to surrender his cell phone in compliance with what appears to have been an attempted robbery. According to multiple accounts, the assailants were two Black teenagers.
That incident was the third time in eight days that an Orthodox resident of Crown Heights was targeted for violence and humiliation. Before then, an African American male smacked a 13-year-old Jewish boy who was commuting to school on his bike in the heavily neighborhood, which is heavily Jewish, and less than a week earlier, an assailant slashed a visibly Jewish man in the face.
Most recently, a masked man was caught on video approaching a visibly Jewish father walking with his two sons and grabbing one of the children in broad daylight. He was unable to secure possession of the child, whose father fought back immediately and did not let go of his son. Police later identified the man as Stephan Stowe, 28 — a suspect gang member with an extensive criminal history which includes 33 prior arrests — and charged arrested him attempted kidnapping and endangering the welfare of a child.
In each case, the suspect was allegedly a Black male, a pattern of conduct which continues to strain Black-Jewish relations across the Five Boroughs.
Black-on-Jewish crime is a social issue which has been studied before. In 2022, a report published by Americans Against Antisemitism (AAA) showed that Orthodox Jews were the minority group most victimized by hate crimes in New York City and that 69 percent of their assailants were African American. Seventy-seven percent of the incidents took place taking in predominantly Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods in Brooklyn. Of all assaults that prompted criminal proceedings, just two resulted in convictions.
“We’ve never seen anything like this,” AAA founder and former New York State Assemblyman Dov Hikind (D) told The Algemeiner. “Shouldn’t there be a plan for how we’re going to deal with it? What’s the answer? Education? We’ve been educating everybody forever for God’s sake, and things are just getting worse.”
The problem has become acute in recent years. In July 2023, for example, a 22-year-old Israeli Yeshiva student, who was identifiably Orthodox and visiting New York City for the summer holiday, was stabbed with a screwdriver by one of two men who attacked him after asking whether he was Jewish and had any money. The other punched him in the face. Earlier that year, 10- and 12-year-olds were attacked on Albany Avenue by four African American teens.
According to a report issued in August by New York state comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, antisemitic incidents accounted for a striking 65 percent of all felony hate crimes in New York City last year. The report added that throughout the state, nearly 44 percent of all recorded hate crime incidents and 88 percent of religious-based hate crimes targeted Jewish victims.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Attempted Robbery of Jewish Man in Brooklyn Puts Orthodox Community on Edge first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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