The Jordanian King, Abdullah II has come out to openly protest and decry the attacks on Jordan’s borders by some “militias linked to Iran”, following some deadly clashes with drug smugglers on the frontier with Syria.
He had made this assertion in an interview published Sunday.
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Jordan faces “regular attacks on its borders by militias linked to Iran”, he told Al-Rai newspaper. Abdullah called for “a change of behaviour by Iran” and said that Jordan “does not want tensions in the region”.
“Jordan, like the rest of the Arab countries, seeks good relations with Iran, with mutual respect, good neighbourliness, respect for the sovereignty of other states and non-interference in their affairs,” the king said.
Abdullah had also reported that Jordan, which was like other Arab nations, being targeted by smugglers of drugs and arms that he said were in transit to Europe.
“Jordan is coordinating with its brothers (Arab countries) to confront this and protect its borders,” he said.
The Jordanian army conducts regular anti-smuggling operations on the border with Syria, where Iran-backed fighters support the Damascus regime in a civil war that erupted in 2011. On January 27, Amman said its forces killed 27 drug traffickers supported by armed groups, seizing a large quantity of drugs. An officer and a border guard were killed in a similar clash earlier the same month.
According to organisations which monitor drug trafficking, the increasingly popular amphetamine-style stimulant captagon is produced in government-controlled areas of Syria and marketed almost exclusively in the Middle East.
In another report, some flooding in southern Iran has killed no fewer than 21 people and left others missing following heavy rainfall in the largely arid country, state media reported on Saturday.
“Twenty-one people were killed and two are still missing,” in the floods that affected several towns in and around Estahban county in the southern province of Fars, Hossein Darvishi, provincial head of the Red Crescent Society, was quoted as saying by state TV.
Videos posted on local media and social media which were sighted by Africa Daily News, New York showed cars caught in the rising waters of the Roodball river and carried away while parents tried to rescue their children from the vehicles.