by Staff Reporter
April 26, 2013 (TSR) – Jordanian protesters burned the US flag at a demonstration in Amman on Friday and expressed rejection to American presence and troop deployment in Jordan in connection with the war in neighboring Syria.
Demonstrators set the US flag on fire before the rally broke off into two groups, one heading towards the royal palace that overlooks downtown Amman, while the other marched on the main square outside city hall.
The rallies were lead and organized by Jordanian youth groups and nationalist parties, they congregated in front of the Grand al-Husseini Mosque in which they chanted slogans demanding that the U.S. soldiers leave their country.
After weekly Muslim prayers, the Jordanians were chanting: “We don’t want to see American” soldiers in our country. The demonstrators were carrying banners and signs that read: “The (Jordanian) Arab army protects us” and “US presence undermines national sovereignty.”
Several mass protests with hundreds of participants were witnessed by AFP reporters in a number of cities including Amman, Zarqa (30 km east) and Irbid (60 km north).
Among the slogans chanted at the protests in the province of Arbad and al-Zarqaa, east of the capital, were “The US Is Head of the Snake” and “Syria is Free, Let America out”, witnesses said.
National Jordanian forces announced two days ago that they were getting ready to hold a national meeting under the motto “Protecting Jordan…Supporting Syria”, stressing that Jordan will not be a passageway for aggression on Syria.
Jordan’s opposition party, the Islamic Action front, has also denounced the presence of American troops in the kingdom and has asked the government to review its decision to authorize the deployment of foreign troops on Jordan’s soil.
Jordan this week acknowledged the US had deployed 200 soldiers in its territories, but refused to link the issue to the Syrian crisis.
Diplomatic sources said the US troops arrived as part of a plan to protect the kingdom border as the situation in Syria spins out of control.
Other foreign troops are also believed to be station near the northern border to provide logistic assistance and monitor chemical weapons in the neighboring Syria.
The demonstrators said the deployment could be just the beginning of a process that paves the way for US interference in the Syrian unrest.
They also said that they do not want to see a US-led invasion of Syria, like the 2003 war in Iraq, based on faulty intelligence about weapons of mass destruction.
Earlier this month US Defence Minister Chuck Hagel revealed that some 150 US military specialists have been deployed in Jordan since last year and that he had ordered a US Army headquarters team to bolster the mission, bringing the total American presence to more than 200 troops in the coming weeks for military operations along Syrian border.
“They will be arriving in the next few weeks…to increase the level of preparedness and defense capabilities of the kingdom in light of the continued deterioration in the Syrian situation,” Mohammad al-Momani, Minister of State for Information, told Reuters.
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel told the Senate Armed Services Committee in Washington that the move aimed at “boosting defenses” over the ongoing crisis in Syria and that the deployment would include specialists in intelligence, logistics and operations.
Hagel has called military intervention in Syria “an option, but an option of last resort.”
On March 22, US President Barack Obama and Jordanian ruler King Abdullah II agreed to stand united against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who is fighting foreign-sponsored militants.
Obama promised military aid for the Syrian opposition, saying the US “will provide resources, training and capacity for the Syrian opposition.”
The US president also pledged 200 million dollars to King Abdullah to deal with Syrian refugees in Jordan.
King Abdullah of Jordan has become the first Arab ruler to call on Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president, to step down, when the Arab leaders started to gang up on Al-Assad in 2011.
“If Bashar (Assad) has the interest of his country, he would step down, but he would also create an ability to reach out and start a new phase of Syrian political life,” King Abdullah told the BBC in an interview.
To date promises made to reform have not been fulfilled and observers think uprising is brewing in the Kingdom of Jordan. Jordan has been the scene of protests for political and economic reform since 2011.
Michael Maloof, former Pentagon Official told Press TV last month that he thinks King Abdullah’s government is in “a very precarious position right now and it’s going to remain that way until he starts instituting real reforms. For example, the demonstrators want the prime minister elected. He has been appointed once again and there’s some question whether this latest prime minister is representative of what the people really want.”
He also said that “this is particularly of concern to the United States because Jordan is such a key element in its supplying of arms and what-have-you to the Syrian opposition right now and in training.”
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, whose regime has been battling rebels trying to oust him from power since March 2011, warned in an interview this month that the war in his country could spread to Jordan, which he accused of allowing rebels, majority are foreign nationals, free movement across the border.
Damascus says the West and its regional allies including Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey are supporting the militants.
