AMMAN: Jordanian authorities said a security officer was stabbed to death in the country’s capital Amman on Thursday, calling it a ‘terrorist attack’.
‘The Public Security Directorate mourned the martyrdom of Corporal Jawad Ali Khalaf Al-Salaytah, who was killed in a cowardly terrorist attack,’ the directorate said in a statement. Another officer was injured in the incident, it added.
Authorities said the attack took place in front of the Sri Lankan embassy, where the victim was stabbed with a ‘sharp object’. The officer was rushed to hospital but later died from his injuries, the directorate said.
A nearby police patrol responded immediately and arrested the attacker, it added. King Abdullah II, during a visit to Kazakhstan, ‘emphasised that Jordan will not falter in its fight against terrorism and extremism, nor will it allow anyone to threaten its security or harm its citizens’, the royal court said in a statement.
The second officer wounded in the incident sustained injuries to their face as he tried to intervene and was in a stable condition. Security agencies were investigating, the directorate said.
The attack comes two weeks after gunmen killed nine people and wounded 25 others when they stormed a Greek Orthodox church in Karak governorate.
On Tuesday, three men were charged with terrorismrelated offences over that attack. Authorities described the suspects in the church attack as followers of a hardline ideology. The violence shocked Jordan, where Christians make up around three per cent of its Muslimmajority population.
Under Jordan’s anti-terrorism law, a conviction on the most serious charge carrying out terrorist acts resulting in death is punishable by death.-AFP