Increasing protests in the Kingdom of Jordan are causing concern in the Gulf about the direction the protests may take. In addition there is concern that Iran is seeking to exploit the protests and work with the Muslim Brotherhood to undermine Jordan’s stability. A recent report at Al-Ain Media in the UAE examined this issue and is worth looking at in-depth to understand the developments.
First of all it’s worth noting that in the wake of October 7 Iran has sought to set the region aflame by operating its proxies and militias. It prodded Hezbollah to attack Israel on October 8 and pushed the Houthis to target Eilat and ships in the Red Sea.
It then mobilized militias in Iraq and Syria to attack US forces.
More recently it has also prodded those militias to attack Israel with drones. In addition, the Iranian-backed Kataib Hezbollah launched a drone attack against Jordan on January 27, killing three Americans at a desert outpost near the Syrian border.
Yesterday US forces in Tanf garrison in Syria also downed a drone flying in Syria near their post. It is likely that Iran viewed October 7 as the first shot in a longer war that is designed to bring Hamas to power in the West Bank and weaken the Palestinian Authority. To do this it has to weaken Jordan as well to weaken the PA’s eastern flank of stability that is guaranteed by Jordan’s support for the PA.
In addition, this week Abu al-Askari, spokesperson of Kataib Hezbollah threatened Israel and claimed that Iranian-backed militias in Iraq could help arm groups in Jordan to threaten Israel. This shows that Iraqi militias, backed by Iran, are increasingly looking to destabilize Jordan. In the past, pro-Iran gangs in southern Syria have also trafficked drugs near the Jordanian border and clashed with the Jordanian army.
An article at Al-Ain media Wednesday says that “in an attempt to restore its presence on the street and overcome the internal disputes that are ravaging it, the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan sought to exploit the Gaza war to achieve personal gains under pressure from the ‘shadow movement’ that controls the organization’s nodes.” The article notes that there have been protests in Jordan recently and that the Muslim Brotherhood is seeking to exploit them to obtain political gains and put pressure on the King. “The group’s bidding indicated that it has further goals than the idea of solidarity with the Gaza Strip.”
Hamas has roots in the Brotherhood and the Brotherhood has activists in Jordan. “The Brotherhood organization seeks to implicate Jordan in the raging events in Palestine while creating chaos in the country by expanding the demonstrations and making them unpeaceful, while publishing allegations that increase acts of violence and enable them to obtain more popular sympathy in the region that has expelled them and made them undesirable.
Jordan has been very supportive of the people of Gaza and has organized numerous airdrops and a field hospital. In addition, Jordanian politicians and officials have often slammed Israel. They appeared to criticize Israel to head off any of the kinds of complains outlined above that the Brotherhood could use against the Kingdom. Now, six months into the war, the nexus of the Brotherhood and other forces linked to Iran, may be making inroads.
Brotherhood's chaos plot in Jordan and Egypt
The Al-Ain report notes that the Brotherhood has plans to spread chaos in Jordan and Egypt. The timing reveals a “hidden” side of the story, which is the Brotherhood wants to heal its own internal divisions by “focusing on igniting the kingdom and occupying the group’s organizational bases with protests to cover up the differences and crises it faces.”
The Muslim Brotherhood was supposed to be dissolved officially in Jordan but it acts through its political arm the Islamic Action Front Party, the report says. The Brotherhood in Jordan has many factions and internal disputes due to its history, the article claims. This is also “attributed to the presence of Jordanians of Palestinian origin and others.”
The article says that a “shadow” movement has emerged which focuses purely on Palestinian issues. “This movement is led by the General Comptroller of the Brotherhood in Jordan Abdul Hamid Al-Thanibat (Thneibat),” and he has sought to increasingly back Hamas. “It is worth noting that the issue of the relationship with the Palestinian Hamas movement was considered one of the most important controversial issues among what is known as the shadow movement or Hamas organization in the Jordanian Brotherhood,” the article says. While the Brotherhood in Jordan says it has no organizational ties to Hamas, in fact the recent protests show how there are connections. “Head of the Hamas political bureau abroad, Khaled Mashal, called for escalation on the border with Israel in order to incite and inflame the situation in Jordan,” Al-Ain notes.
Mashal once resided in Jordan but was expelled in 1999. Hamas was accused of threatening the security of the Kingdom in the 1990s and Israel attempted to assassinate Meshal in Jordan in 1997, an incident that became an embarrassment for Benjamin Netanyahu during his first term as Prime Minister. Mashal visited the kingdom in 2012.
It now appears that Hamas and the Brotherhood want to weaken Jordan and hijack it amidst the chaos in the region. The article quotes a Jordanian writer begging the Brotherhood not to bring chaos into the kingdom. Some Jordanians want to pressure the government to act and others understand the group will lose if they increase their clashes with security forces.
“The more extreme movement (the Hamas organization in the Jordanian Brotherhood) raised the idea of the resignation of the representatives of the Islah Bloc, who represent the group and its political arm, the Islamic Action Front Party, in Parliament, so that the government would take stronger decisions regarding the war in Gaza,” the report notes. This is all about politics and pressure.
There are also other worrying developments. The group may want to “revive the popular army and arm Jordanians to fight a battle with Israel. It called on Jordanians to march to the borders of the occupied territories, previously made by the military leadership of the Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, and the leadership of the movement’s political bureau, headed by Khaled Mashal.”
The report links this to similar calls in Lebanon and Yemen regarding Hezbollah and the Houthis. It says that Iran has sought to open the borders of Jordan and Egypt to fighters who want to attack Israel as part of the “resistance axis.” Thousands of fighters in Syria could already attack Israel from the Golan, the report notes, but it correctly points out that the demand is focused on Jordan and Egypt “in order to achieve the axis goals of swallowing up the rest of the countries of the Arab region and subjecting them to the Iranian project, according to observers.” This “reveals that the Brotherhood in Jordan is working to put pressure on the Jordanian leadership to intensify the atmosphere in the street... that may lead to Jordan sliding into chaos.” It is a dangerous situation “which ultimately serves the Iranian project.”