Jordan is anxiously watching military and security developments along its northern border with war-torn Syria, according to a number of Jordanian military and strategic analysts with whom Al-Monitor recently spoke amid heightened tensions between Amman and Damascus. Since King Abdullah II’s April 5 visit to Washington, there have been conflicting reports about a sizeable military buildup of US and British troops on the Jordanian side of the border with Syria, raising questions about a possible joint incursion into southern Syria, apparently to pre-empt and confront Islamic State (IS) expansion in the vast Badia region.
Speculation about an “imminent” operation inside Syria from Jordan prompted Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, in an April 21 Sputnik interview, to lambast the kingdom, accusing it of being “part of an American plan” to deploy troops on Syrian territory. That triggered a war of words between Jordan and Syria, with a government spokesman in Amman, Mohammad al-Momani, on the same day issuing a statement rejecting Assad’s “fabricated allegations.” On April 26, Abdullah told local media figures that the kingdom will defend itself from any threats “without the need to have a role for the [Jordanian] army inside Syria.”