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Jordanian troops killed in bomb attack at Syria border | |
(about 2 hours later) | |
Six Jordanian security personnel have been killed and 14 hurt in a car bomb attack near a makeshift refugee camp on the Syria-Jordan border, officials say. | |
The attack took place at about 05:30 (02:30 GMT) in the remote Rukban area, a few hundred metres from the camp. | The attack took place at about 05:30 (02:30 GMT) in the remote Rukban area, a few hundred metres from the camp. |
A number of other "hostile" vehicles were destroyed. | |
It is not yet clear who carried out the attack, but the jihadist group Islamic State (IS) has threatened in the past to "break down" Jordan's borders. | |
The kingdom is part of the US-led coalition against IS and has carried out air strikes on militants in Syria. | |
'Criminal act' | |
Tuesday's attack, the first of its kind since the conflict in Syria began in 2011, saw an explosives-laden vehicle blown up beside a military post. | |
The blast left four border guards and two personnel from the Civil Defence and Public Security Department dead, a military statement said. | |
"Such criminal act will only add to our unshaken determination to fight terrorism and terrorists' ideologies regardless of their motives," it added. | |
Earlier this month, Jordanian intelligence service officers and two other employees were killed in a Palestinian refugee camp near the capital, Amman, in what the government said was a terrorist attack. | |
The Rukban camp is located beside an earthen berm in the desert, about 8km (5 miles) west of the point at which the Iraq, Syria, and Jordan borders meet. | |
The rocky area is devoid of shade, water or vegetation and is far from any towns. | |
Aid workers say more than 50,000 refugees are stranded at the camp, living in deplorable conditions while awaiting entry to Jordan. | |
UN satellite analysts mapped more than 6,400 probable shelters in the area in late April. | |
The Jordanian authorities currently only allow in about 50 to 100 refugees each day, citing security concerns. | |
Many of the refugees are believed to have fled areas controlled by IS in eastern Homs province and neighbouring Raqqa, where forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad have made gains in the past year with the support of Russian air strikes. | |
Thousands of other refugees are stranded at another tented camp on the border at Hadalat, about 90km west of Rukban, where the UN mapped 1,900 shelters. | |
The UN acknowledged in December that Jordan had legitimate security concerns, but called on the country to allow all the refugees at the two camps to enter. | |
Jordan is hosting 655,000 of the 4.84 million Syrians registered as refugees with the UN. | |
The government says more than one million other Syrians are living there, including those who arrived before the uprising against Mr Assad began. |