ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Jordanian airstrikes left five civilians dead in Syria’s southern province of Daraa, a health official in the province told state media late Monday, as Amman claimed it raided a group of gunmen responsible for massacring nine Christians in a Friday attack. Jordan said the airstrikes were conducted “in coordination with Syria” while Damascus denied the claim.
"A 65-year-old civilian resident of Daraa’s Tariq al-Sadd neighborhood was among the five killed, succumbing to shrapnel wounds from the airstrikes after being rushed to the Daraa National Hospital,” the state-run Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) reported.
The report comes as the Jordanian armed forces announced an hour earlier that they carried out “Operation Jordanian Deterrence - Hmoud,” in reference to the village where gunmen attacked a Greek Orthodox church during a funeral in Jordan's Karak province on Friday, killing nine people and wounding 34 others, according to Jordanian authorities.
The Royal Jordanian Air Force targeted “hideouts of terrorist organizations in southern Syria,” the kingdom’s armed forces announced in a statement carried by the state-run Jordan News Agency (Petra), claiming that “the terrorists behind the Hmoud attack have ties to the targeted terrorist organizations.”
Jordanian fighter jets "destroyed a number of terrorist locations, killing and wounding several terrorists and destroying their equipment,” the statement added, noting that it was carried out “in retaliation” for the church attack.
Meanwhile, the Syrian government denied “prior coordination” for the airstrikes and confirmed that they left “civilians and children” dead.
It also said there are “open channels of communication” with Jordan that will be utilized soon to “emphasize the importance of joint field and security coordination for any measures involving border areas,” read a statement attributed to the government and carried by SANA.
Separately, the Jordanian interior minister Mazen Faraya earlier on Monday announced the arrest of three “terrorists” associated with the attack while indicating the resumption of investigations “to hold everyone involved in the crime accountable."
The attack "stemmed from an extremist terrorist ideology that requires a comprehensive response," he said in a joint press conference in which the director of public security Obeidallah Maaytah was also present.
Maaytah identified the arrested suspects as "Hazza’ Zaidan Muhammad,” whom he described as the mastermind behind the operation; his brother, Mish’al Zaidan Muhammad; and Ahmad Sami Hussein."
He also confirmed they were Jordanian nationals.
“They represent only themselves and do not reflect the views of the people of Karak Governorate or Jordanian society as a whole,” he stated.
