TEL AVIV – A gag order has been imposed on the investigation into Monday’s shooting at Jordan’s Baqa’a refugee camp, in which five people, including three intelligence officers, were killed.
Dr. Amjad Alikadi, the head of Jordan’s communications authority, said that the gag order was imposed to protect the public interest and violators will be prosecuted.
Hours after the incident, at the kingdom’s biggest refugee camp, prime suspect Mahmoud Masharfeh was arrested after he went into hiding in a nearby mosque.
Jordanian authorities have insisted that it was a lone-wolf attack rather than an act of terror, in spite of Islamic State threats to retaliate against the kingdom’s participation in the Western coalition against them.
“Investigations are under way but early indications are that this was an isolated and individual act,” government spokesman Mohamed Momani told reporters.
An Arab intelligence source, who is well acquainted with Jordan, told Breitbart Jerusalem that the authorities haven’t completely ruled out an organized terrorist attack. He said that many Syrian refugees, Palestinian residents, and Jordanian citizens have been arrested on suspicion of supporting IS.
“The investigation is still underway, we will know more in the coming hours. But there are indications that independent militants and terrorist organizations are operating in Jordan and seeking to undermine its national security,” he said. “The main concern is that this attack was a prelude to a string of attacks on Jordanian soil. It has been published that IS threatened to carry out attacks on every member of the international coalition during Ramadan, and it makes sense that the organization will find respite in Jordan after having been delivered blows in Syria and Iraq, as well as having faced an attack on its bases in the Sirte area in Libya.”
Despite having lost ground in Fallujah and in its capital, Raqqa, IS is still capable of carrying out spectacular attacks in the region and in the West, he said.
“First of all, IS is an ideology, with millions of sympathizers around the world, and we have to treat all of them as a potential threat,” he said. “Every time the organization is on the defensive, it retaliates with deadly attacks. And this may well be the case this time as well.”
“To the best of my knowledge, Jordan is doing its utmost to intercept IS attacks, but the organization has proved to be sophisticated and able,” he said. “I just hope that we will survive Ramadan, that has just started, and that the counterintelligence activity will continue, full steam ahead, alongside military operations.”
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