Attack at Palestinian refugee camp kills 5 in Jordan

3 intelligence officers and 2 others die in early morning attack

Image | MIDEAST-GAZA/

Caption: Palestinian refugees demonstrate at the al-Baqaa refugee camp, near Amman in July 2014. Baqaa camp is the largest camp in Jordan, where a large percentage of the country's over seven million population are descendents of Palestinian refugees who fled in the aftermath of the creation of Israel in 1948. (Muhammad Hamed/Reuters)

Three Jordanian intelligence officers and two other security personnel were killed in an attack on a security office in a Palestinian refugee camp on the outskirts of the Jordanian capital, a government official said on Monday.
Jordanian television, quoting a government spokesman, described it as a terrorist attack that took place at 7 a.m. local time, giving no further details.
Baqaa camp is the largest camp in Jordan, where a large percentage of the country's over seven million population are descendents of Palestinian refugees who fled in the aftermath of the creation of Israel in 1948.
Government spokesman Mohammad al-Momani said the attack targeted the intelligence department's local office in the camp that houses over 70,000 refugees. Alongside the three officers, a guard and a telephone exchange operator at the office were killed.
Earlier this year a large security operation was mounted in the northern city of Irbid in which several Islamic State sympathizers were killed in a shootout.