Jordanian Prime Minister Marouf al-Bakhit has told Muslim opposition lawmakers that weapons seized from a Hamas cache in the kingdom were smuggled from Syria, two parliament deputies said on Thursday.
The prime minister's office declined to comment on the matter, but Jordan's official Petra news agency quoted al-Bakhit as telling the lawmakers that the arms were smuggled from "a neighboring Arab country," but did not name Syria.
Petra said al-Bakhit told the lawmakers in the Wednesday meeting that the cache impounded earlier this week "wasn't the first time that Hamas smuggled weapons to Jordan, but there had been several previous attempts that were busted."
According to Azzam Hneidi, a deputy who heads the 17-strong opposition Islamic Action Front bloc in parliament, al-Bakhit did not say how activists from the militant Palestinian group managed to sneak in the weapons and explosives from Syria, where the Hamas political leaders are based.
Hneidi said that al-Bakhit made his comments on Wednesday in a meeting with him and nine other members of the Islamic Action Front, the political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood Movement.
Tayseer al-Fityani, another deputy representing the Islamic Action Front in parliament, confirmed. He quoted al-Bakhit as saying that "a number of people" linked to Hamas were detained. But he said that the prime minister declined to identify them or say how many they were.
Government officials declined comment, apparently to avoid tensions with Jordan's northern neighbor, which the US accuses of sponsoring terrorism because of its support for anti-Israeli militant Palestinian factions, including Hamas, and the Lebanese Hezbollah group.
The US, which has imposed economic sanctions on Damascus, also accuses Syria of allowing militants to cross into Iraq to fight the US-led multinational force there. Syria has denied the charges.
Amman has accused Syria before of not stopping Islamic militants from smuggling arms to Jordan, a moderate Arab nation with close ties to the US and a peace treaty with Israel, signed in 1994.
Last year, Jordan said an al-Qaeda plot to attack intelligence headquarters in Amman had been hatched in Syria and another neighboring state. Under the plan, members of the group purportedly entered the kingdom from Syria. Damascus denied the accusations.
Earlier this week, Jordan said Hamas activists were threatening the country's national security by smuggling weapons and stashing them in the kingdom. Hamas denied the allegation.
Officials did not say whether arrests had been made, but confirmed that the government called off the visit by Palestinian Foreign Minister Mahmoud Zahar, a Hamas member, because of the discovery.
Crowds in Bangladesh are flocking to snap photographs with an unlikely social media star — an albino buffalo with flowing blond hair nicknamed “Donald Trump” that is due to be sacrificed within days. Owner Zia Uddin Mridha, 38, said his brother named the 700kg bull over its flowing helmet of hair resembling the signature look of the US president. “My younger brother picked this name because of the buffalo’s extraordinary hair,” he said at his farm in Narayanganj, just outside the capital, Dhaka. Mridha said that a constant stream of curious visitors — social media fans, onlookers and children — have come throughout
It began as a satirical online project. Now millions of young people in India are flocking to it as an outlet for their frustration. A parody political party called the Cockroach Janta Party, with the insect as its symbol, has exploded across India’s social media by turning absurdist humor into protest. Memes and short videos mocking corruption, joblessness and political dysfunction have flooded social media sites, where millions of users are embracing the cockroach — known for its ability to survive harsh conditions — as a tongue-in-cheek symbol of endurance. The online movement’s rise has been unusually rapid. The Cockroach Janta Party (CJP)
HOTTER: While Indians are accustomed to summer heat, climate change has caused northwestern India to warm faster than other parts of the country, an academic said Roads and markets have emptied during afternoons and some farmers have switched to nighttime work to avoid scorching temperatures as a heat wave grips large parts of India. The India Meteorological Department forecast maximum temperatures for yesterday of about 45°C in the capital, New Delhi, where authorities have opened temporary “cooling zones” to help people cope. The weather department warned that conditions would likely persist across several northern regions in the coming days, with temperatures staying well above seasonal averages. Authorities urged people to stay indoors during the hottest hours and take precautions against heat-related illnesses. India declares a heat wave whenever maximum temperatures
BIGGER ROLE: Beijing has said it maintains an impartial stance on the war in Ukraine, but by training Russian troops, China is far more involved than previously known China’s armed forces secretly trained about 200 Russian military personnel in China late last year, and some have since returned to fight in Ukraine, according to three European intelligence agencies and documents seen by Reuters. While China and Russia have held a number of joint military exercises since Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Beijing has repeatedly said that it is neutral in the conflict and presents itself as a peace mediator. The covert training sessions, which predominantly focused on the use of drones, were outlined in a dual-language Russian-Chinese agreement signed by senior Russian and Chinese officers in Beijing on
RSS