Lone crimes or organised targeting?

Within roughly two weeks, the Hamoud church crime in Karak was carried out, claiming the lives of nine innocent people, followed by the killing of security officer Jawad Al-Slayta in Amman. Both crimes were committed by criminals linked to takfiri terrorist currents. Are these two separate crimes, or is there something that points to the involvement of groups or networks seeking to target Jordan and destabilise it?

The closeness in time between two crimes is not enough to prove they are connected, and the absence of publicly announced evidence of coordination is not enough to rule out a link. But the first worrying indicator concerns the nature of the targets. In Karak, the targets were Christian citizens, a choice that cannot be separated from a takfiri ideology that regards religious difference as justification for killing. In Amman, the target was a security officer representing the authority and institutions of the state. Despite the differences between the two crimes, they meet in an attempt to strike two basic pillars of Jordanian stability: social unity and the prestige of the state.

Targeting the church was intended to create fear and suspicion, and to undermine trust between the components of society. Targeting security personnel was intended to portray the state as unable to protect its institutions and citizens. This is a clear intersection of the aims that terrorist crimes serve.

Contemporary terrorism no longer requires a hierarchical organisation that issues instructions and distributes roles. Extremist groups may succeed in creating an incitement environment that pushes individuals to carry out independent attacks, without direct contact with their leaders.

The most dangerous indicator, however, concerns timing and the regional context. Jordan is not isolated from the transformations taking place in the region. It sits at the heart of a highly complex security environment. What is happening in Syria, the continued activity of some extremist groups and smuggling networks, and the repeated regional tensions all make the Kingdom vulnerable to attempts at infiltration and targeting.

It is legitimate to ask whether extremist groups are trying to exploit regional instability to revive their cells or expand their operations inside Jordan. It is also worth considering whether some parties may benefit politically from keeping the Kingdom occupied with internal threats, or from attempts to weaken its ability to deal with regional files.

For takfiri groups, Jordan has always been a firm intellectual and security adversary. The Jordanian state adopts a religious approach based on moderation, confronts terrorist organisations resolutely, and maintains a model of communal coexistence that contradicts the project those groups seek to impose. Targeting Jordan may not be linked to a current political decision, but may instead be an extension of an ongoing ideological hostility towards the nature of the state and its choices.

However, this explanation risks giving terrorist organisations a bigger role than they really have, and diverting attention from domestic factors related to intellectual extremism and continuous incitement. Effective confrontation begins with investigating the facts and tracing networks of relationships and communication. Whether the two crimes were separate or carried out under the direction of a single party, they clearly point to a shared extremist environment that produces such crimes and provides their perpetrators with intellectual justifications and psychological motives.

After this great grief that has settled over every home in Jordan, we must recognise that the Karak and Amman crimes call for raising the level of security vigilance. Above all, Jordanians must understand that terrorism, whether it takes the form of organised cells or extremist individuals, targets society and the state alike, and that the strongest and most effective response is to protect national unity and strengthen trust in state institutions.