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2025-04-19 Israel-Palestine-Jordan
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'Chaos within the kingdom': Jordan's secret service's success hurts rebel prince
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Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
by Leonid Tsukanov
[REGNUM] Recently, Jordan's special services managed to hit the jackpot. In the northwest of the country, an underground workshop for the production of missiles and drones was uncovered and liquidated. The General Intelligence Directorate (GID) captured 16 people. The scandal exposed Jordan's problems, which at first glance seemed forgotten.
And while some are looking for clients abroad or among disgraced political movements, others are turning their gaze to the royal court.
AWAY FROM EVERYONE
Authorities say the plotters planned attacks using missiles and drones and stockpiled explosives to fill them, including C4 and SEMTEX-H plastic explosives.
Moreover, they were clearly not amateurs - the ammunition discovered in underground workshops was clearly created by engineers familiar with the latest trends in rocket engineering.
The production line was set up in the northwest of the country, away from prying eyes.
It was not possible to assess the real scale of production - the underground workers managed to destroy some of the property before the Jordanian security forces launched an assault.
However, an arsenal of several newly manufactured missiles was almost untouched. At least one of them was fully equipped and ready to launch.
And although the flight range of the seized warhead is estimated skeptically (literally ten kilometers), the immediate proximity of the production facilities to the Jordanian-Israeli border greatly increased the risk of an attack on border settlements and checkpoints of the Israeli army from the territory of the kingdom.
THEY BLAMED HAMAS
GID operatives are in no hurry to reveal all their cards and are very vague about the results of the raid. At the official press conference, it was stated that the conspirators had been "under surveillance" since 2021, and active measures against them began last year.
The liquidation of the "rocket factory" was the final stage of a multi-year operation. The nationality of the detainees is also not disclosed. It is only reported that most of the conspirators were Muslims, and some of them were trained in Lebanon.
However, even this fragmentary information was enough for Jordan's neighbors to draw their own conclusions. The Israeli press, which was among the first to learn of the scandal, named Hamas members as the owners of the destroyed underground factory, apparently latching onto the conspirators' Lebanese trips.
Moreover, the Israelis threw a “glove” in Amman’s face, accusing the authorities of “turning a blind eye” to the activities of emissaries of hostile forces on their territory, and the Palestinian refugees living there of preparing new attacks on the territory of the Jewish state.
However, it was mainly opposition media that made such revelations. The right-wing media in Israel, loyal to the government, preferred to present the topic in the most vague way possible and without far-reaching conclusions.
This is understandable: Jordan is still considered by the Israeli government as one of the promising places for resettlement of Gaza residents. However, Amman sees large Palestinian settlements as a hidden threat to the country's stability and is in no hurry to make a deal.
Official Tel Aviv does not want to spoil its own diplomatic game by further inflaming tensions between the royal court and the Palestinian communities.
POSSIBLE "SET-UP"
The Hamas version may be the main one, but it is far from the only one.
The Jordanians themselves are more willing to place the blame on the Muslim Brotherhood* group. True, this version comes from the lips of civil servants; law enforcement officials do not give a clear answer.
The version seems quite coherent. Especially since the representatives of the group (until recently they were a serious political force in the kingdom) have already tried several times in different ways to overthrow King Abdullah II from the throne.
And in 2020, official Amman forced the Muslim Brotherhood* to cease operations in Jordan, thereby publicly insulting them.
Egypt also agrees with the thesis about the involvement of this organization in the conspiracy. True, Cairo balances between the Israeli and Jordanian interpretations of events, recalling that Hamas also emerged at one time as a separate cell within the Brotherhood*, but over time the paths of the two forces diverged.
And with the onset of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, friction began between yesterday's allies. Today's protests in Gaza are being stirred up, among others, by supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood*, and Hamas' counterintelligence has reported at least three arrests of the group's agents of influence in the enclave.
In this regard, Egyptian security officials consider the scandal with the rockets an attempt to frame Hamas and further complicate its position.
THE DISGRACED PRINCE
The scandal has rocked Jordanian society, becoming the biggest in recent years.
Moreover, in the official press release, the intelligence services named the goal of the foiled plot as “damaging national security, chaos and destruction within the kingdom.” So the security forces are directly saying that the target of the hypothetical missile attacks was not Israel at all.
Behind the scenes, for the first time since 2021, the name of the disgraced Prince Hamza ibn Hussein, the younger brother of the Jordanian king and heir to the throne until 2004, was heard again.
Hamza gave way in line to the king's son, Hussein ibn Abdullah, but was believed by many courtiers to have been hurt by his nephew's rapid rise.
Others also say that Hamza fears reprisals after the hypothetical death of his august brother, who has already complained several times about health problems.
It is the king's brother who is considered the main beneficiary of the failed coup of 2021. At that time, the conflict between the royals was quickly resolved, and the prince avoided public accusations of organizing the rebellion, although some of his close associates were imprisoned.
However, from that moment on, his every move has been closely monitored by Jordanian intelligence services, and he himself remains a prisoner of the “golden cage” and almost never leaves his native palace, with the exception of rare public court ceremonies.
The current emphasis in Jordanian law enforcement statements on the events of 2021 is a worrying signal for Hamza. It is possible that the scandal will be used by opponents of the disgraced prince to further push him away from the court and finally deprive him of any claims to the throne.
And here it is not so important who the Jordanian law enforcement officials declare the "owner" of the liquidated underground factory: Hamas or the Muslim Brotherhood*. If even an indirect connection with the prince is discovered, his "golden cage" may well become an iron one.
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Posted by obadanov 2025-04-19 00:00||
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