Jordanian military kills 27 in shootout with suspected smugglers from neighbouring Syria

The Jordanian military said Thursday that troops have killed 27 suspected smugglers attempting to enter the country from neighbouring Syria. The report on the army’s website said that it had thwarted several suspected attempts to smuggle drugs into Jordan from Syria, and that large quantities of narcotics were sized in separate interventions that also left several people wounded. The military said that it was “continuing to apply the newly established rules of engagement and will strike with an iron fist and deal with force and firmness with any infiltration or smuggling attempts to protect the borders.” Earlier this month the military said an army officer was killed in a shootout with smugglers along the long porous border it shares with Syria. Jordan is home to more than 650,000 Syrian refugees who fled the civil war that has raged there for more than a decade. In September, Syrian and Jordanian officials discussed border security after Syrian government forces captured rebel-held areas along the Jordanian frontier. A month later, Jordan’s King Abdullah II spoke with Syrian president Bashar Assad for the first time in a decade after the two countries reopened a key border crossing.