More than 5,000 Jordanian nationals have joined jihadi terrorist groups

Lawyer of extremists groups Musa al-Abdallat said on Wednesday that the number of Jordanians who joined ISIS, al-Nusra Front and Jund al-Aqsa (Liwa al-Aqsa) has exceeded 5,000 people and 80 percent of them have joined ISIS in Syria and Iraq.
Abdallat told Asharq Al-Awsat that there are around 800 thousand Jordanian in ranks of Nusra Front, noting that the number of Jordanians who have been killed in Syria and Iraq has amounted to 2,200 during the battles there.

He explained that those have joined the terrorist groups since the beginning of the Syrian crisis as they crossed the Syrian-Jordanian borders before the Jordanian forces took control over the borders and used cameras and long-range night radars with a range of more than 12 kilometers.

There were Jordanians who resided in Syria and most of whom settled in Yarmouk camp south of Damascus and hundreds of them joined ISIS and Nusra Front. In addition, there were also Jordanians who resided in Iraq and fled in 2003 to Syria and other Kurdish areas where dozens of them joined ISIS, according to Abdallat.

The lawyer pointed out that there are 85 members of the Salafist movement, who were being tried over Zarqa incidents that took place in April 2011, got killed in Syria after they were released on bail as they fled Jordan through its borders with Syria.

He said that the case of those killed in Syria remains open before the State Security Court because there are no death certificates submitted to the court or a certificate certified by an official body in Syria to confirm their death.

In a common matter, the State Security Court (SSC) on Wednesday held two separate hearings for two women charged with promoting ISIS.

In the first case, the SSC charged a 19-year-old woman with promoting ISIS ideologies after she was arrested in February for a friendship with a former teacher who reportedly supports ISIS, according to what a Jordanian judicial source told Asharq Al-Awsat.

In the second hearing, a 31-year-old woman, who was also arrested in February, was accused of creating a Facebook page through which she started a friendship with an Egyptian national who allegedly “convinced” her of ISIS ideologies.

The court adjourned the sessions until next week to enable the defendants to present their defense statements.

Source: Aawsat