Eight suspects, including Syrian, charged in Jordan for plotting to attack US soldiers and embassy, recruiting for Hezbollah.
(INN) Jordanian military prosecutors on Monday charged eight suspects, including a Syrian fugitive, with plotting to attack US soldiers and Israel's embassy in the Hashemite kingdom, as well as trying to recruit people to join the Lebanese- based terror group Hezbollah.
"State security court prosecutors accused the eight men with plotting to carry out terrorist acts, including attacks against US soldiers in 2006 and the Israeli embassy in Amman," a court official told AFP.
"The suspects, seven Jordanians and a Syrian fugitive, also recruited to join Hezbollah," he said, adding that the group was arrested in May last year.
The official gave no further details, but said the suspects face life imprisonment if convicted. In May, the military tribunal handed jail terms of between four and 20 years to 11 people it convicted of plotting to attack the US embassy for Al-Qaeda in 2012.
Enmity has been boiling over against the Israeli embassy in Amman lately, with a demonstration late last month during Operation Protective Edge bringing hundreds of mainly Islamist Jordanian protesters to burn Israeli flags in front of the embassy.
The demonstrators reportedly chanted "Death to Israel" and urged Hamas terror attacks in one of the biggest public outpourings of anger against Israel in the last few years. They were joined in smaller marches throughout Jordan.
Jordan, which holds a domestically unpopular peace treaty with Israel that it has recently threatened to revoke, is home to roughly two million "Palestinian refugees,"
Hamas has a large following among the “Palestinians” living in Jordan, who reportedly make up between 60-80% of the country's population.
That support has turned into action; a recently exposed coup attempt against the Palestinian Authority (PA) in Judea and Samaria, which was foiled by Israel, was planned by the Hamas headquarters in Turkey and involved the Hamas HQ in Jordan.
