Syrian refugees wait to receive aid at the Zaatari refugee camp in the Jordanian city of Mafraq near the border with Syria yesterday.
Reuters/Amman
The US will deploy Patriot anti-aircraft missiles and F-16 fighter jets to Syria’s neighbour Jordan this month, Jordan said yesterday, drawing swift condemnation from Moscow which accused the West of sending weapons to fuel Syria’s civil war.
Jordan said the planes and missiles will be sent as part of an annual exercise to begin in the last week of June. Military sources said the exercises would involve armies from at least 18 countries with more than 15,000 troops.
“These annual exercises will increase the preparedness of the Jordanian army. This year we are in need of more advanced weapons,” Jordan’s Minister of Information Mohamed al-Momani told Reuters.
There was no official statement suggesting the Patriots or the fighters would be withdrawn when the exercises are over.
Washington could consider extending their deployment beyond the end of the exercises, a US official told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity.
“We will consider extending the deployment of assets associated with Eager Lion in consultation of the government of Jordan,” the official said, referring to the “Eager Lion” military exercises by name.
Jordan is a US ally in the region and one of the Arab countries that backs the opposition to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who is fighting insurgents in a two-year-old civil war that has killed 80,000 people.
The deployment of Patriot missiles is particularly controversial for Russia, Assad’s main global ally, which believes the missiles could be used by the US and its allies to impose a no-fly zone over Syria, heralding the first direct Western military intervention.
“We have more than once stated our opinion on this - foreign weapons are being pumped into an explosive region,” foreign ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said in a statement.
“This is happening very close to Syria, where for more than two years the flames are burning of a devastating conflict that Russia and its American partners are trying to stop by proposing to hold an international peace conference as soon as possible.”
Moscow complained vociferously last year when the US, Germany and the Netherlands deployed Patriots on Syria’s northern border in Turkey, a Nato ally. Nato said the Patriots were sent there as a precaution in case missiles were fired over the border from Syria.
Moscow said that decision was a factor in its decision to go ahead with plans to send its own anti-aircraft system, the S-300, to Assad’s government.
The Russian system has not yet been deployed but Moscow said in recent weeks it would fulfil the delivery contract.
Assad’s air power is one of his main advantages against the rebels, who are relatively lightly armed.
The US and Russia have jointly called for a peace conference on Syria later this month, the first attempt in a year by the powers supporting the opposing sides in the civil war to find a diplomatic solution.
Snipers kill two in Lebanese city
Snipers have shot dead two men in Tripoli, the Lebanese city wracked by a wave of bloody violence linked to the conflict in neighbouring Syria, a security official said yesterday. “One policeman who was off duty died of sniper-fire wounds from the day before, and a Syrian residing in the city suffered the same fate,” the official told AFP on condition of anonymity. The latest deaths came a day after six people were killed in similar clashes between Sunni- and Alawite-populated parts of the flashpoint northern city. The violence continued yesterday, with assailants torching Alawite-owned shops in the Sunni neighbourhood of Bab el-Tabbaneh, said the security official. The latest confrontations come after a brief lull in the violence between the two sides, following a flare-up last month that left 31 people dead and more than 200 hurt.