Ammon News - AMMONNEWS - Has the Jordanian position toward the armed Syrian opposition changed after the Jordanian air force destroyed vehicles that crossed the Syrian border toward Jordan?

One should not rush to conclude that Jordan’s position toward operations by the Syrian armed opposition has changed, especially since dozens of vehicles still pass from Jordan to Syria under the auspices of Jordanian intelligence.

But the fact that the Jordanian air force destroyed vehicles transporting weapons to Jordan could mean that the Syrian groups that are controlled and funded by joint operations rooms in Amman (and which include Saudi, Jordanian and US intelligence) are no longer trusted to respect the agreement to smuggle guided weapons only toward the Syrian interior.

The Jordanian military stated: “At 10 a.m. [on April 16] a number of camouflaged vehicles were trying to illegally cross the Syrian-Jordanian border in a location with rugged terrain. A number of Jordanian air force planes fired warning shots toward those vehicles, but they didn’t comply and continued moving. So the rules of engagement were applied and the vehicles were destroyed.”

The Syrian army has denied any connection with these vehicles. A Syrian military source told the Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA), “No vehicles or armored vehicles belonging to the Syrian army moved toward the Jordanian border, and therefore what has been targeted by the Jordanian air force doesn’t belong to the Syrian army.” Meanwhile, the First Commando Force, which is affiliated with the Free Syrian Army (FSA), issued a statement saying that “the destroyed vehicles belonged to the Syrian army.”

The matter is not a case of the magic turning against the magician, but suggests that armed groups in Daraa are increasingly moving in the opposite direction, toward Jordan, in order to dispose of surplus weapons that have been introduced in recent months in preparation for a major military operation against Damascus. The matter also points to the disintegration of the southern front of the armed opposition, whose operations lines were partially drawn by Amman under Saudi and US pressure, and with Gulf financial support for Jordan.

Syrian sources said that the vehicles destroyed by Jordanian forces were returning to Jordan after unloading their weapons cargo in Syria. The sources said the attack was Jordan’s response to blackmail by some armed groups that wanted to pressure Amman to allow more weapons into the southern front in Syria. Some of those armed groups are associated with the kidnapping of Jordan’s Libyan ambassador, Fawaz al-Aitan, three days ago.

The increased arms smuggling toward Jordan constitutes a failure of Jordanian intelligence's ally in the region — the “emir” of Jabhat al-Nusra, Bashar al-Zoubi, who is considered the most powerful man of the armed opposition in south Syria and the leader of the most powerful armed faction there.

The vehicles, which were approaching the area of al-Ruwaishid when they were destroyed, were crossing in an area controlled by Zoubi, in the southeastern wing of the Houran. He is the ally of Jordanian and Saudi intelligence in this region. Meanwhile, Abu Muthanna is the leader of the Nusra emirate in the southwest section of the Houran.

The Jordanians have played a major role in getting Zoubi and Saudi intelligence closer during a meeting that was organized last fall between Saudi Deputy Defense Minister Sultan bin Salman, who is supervising the Syrian southern front from a Jordanian hotel. At the meeting, Zoubi was accompanied by the leader of Jabhat al-Nusra, Abu Mohammed al-Golani.

Zoubi began his work in the Fallujah Brigade in the Houran. He enlisted in his ranks men from al-Musaifara, al-Jiza and his hometown al-Taiba. Zoubi is a former truck driver and a smuggler between Syria and Saudi Arabia. He managed to rise in the FSA ranks and become well-known after the death of Lt. Col. Yasser al-Abboud, the head of the FSA Military Council in Daraa.

The Jordanians installed Zoubi as head of Jabhat al-Nusra in the region to control the movement of Jordanian Salafists in the Houran and to reduce their influence on the southern front. Three Jabhat al-Nusra emirs were killed in the region in one year. They all came from the Jordanian Salafist current, from which more than 2,000 jihadists are fighting in Syria. First, Iyad al-Tubasi was killed, followed by Mustafa Abdel Latif Yahia, then Mohammad al-Hayari, who was killed on Dec. 19, 2013.

A Russian diplomatic source in Paris said the Jordanians have begun reviewing their strategy in south Syria after the Syrian army regained the initiative on the ground.

The source added that Jordan’s King Abdullah II told Russian President Vladimir Putin, during his visit to Moscow last Wednesday, that Jordan will not fight a battle on the Syrian southern front and that Jordan had no agreement with anyone about participating in that battle.

The Russian diplomat said that Putin informed the Jordanian visitor that Russia would not accept any military intervention in Syria. Putin warned of the danger of opening the southern front in Syria and said Moscow would stand with Damascus if it found itself facing two coordinated attacks, one in the north and one in the south.

The Russian diplomat said the Jordanians thought they could continue supporting the armed opposition from a second logistical line, but when faced with the possibility of the southern front opening, they found themselves in the first line of attack on their neighbor Syria, which is what they had always feared. He said that Jordanians saw US guarantees to protect the country as not enough to prevent internal security from reacting.

After the Jordanians promised Moscow they would calm the southern front, Jordanian intelligence intervened last week in the Houran operations room and prevented the launching of an operation that would have ignited the southern front around Daraa, in conjunction with an operation that was started by the Ahl al-Sham operations room in Aleppo in the west of the city against the air force intelligence headquarters in the neighborhood of al-Zahra.

The “last FSA brigade” in Daraa, the Martyrs of Yarmouk Brigade, was expected to organize a large-scale operation led by Brig. Gen. Abdullah al-Qaraiza against the air force intelligence headquarters in Wadi al-Zaidi at Daraa’s entrance. Zero hour was April 13. Jabhat Thuwar Suria and Jabhat al-Nusra brigades were expected to participate in the attack, but the Jordanians, the king included, decided that the circumstances no longer allowed the launching of such an operation.

*Al-Monitor