The Jordanian military is increasing its presence along the border with neighboring Iraq today, after the nations’ only border crossing was captured on the Iraqi side by ISIS.
Jordanian officials say they have effectively halted all traffic through the crossing, and truck drivers who have returned from Iraq reported the once busy Amman-Baghdad highway is now full of checkpoints from various Sunni tribal factions throughout Anbar.
With several strong Salafist movements already active in Jordan, the Hashemite kingdom is afraid that an ISIS incursion could quickly snowball, as it has in Iraq.
ISIS is keen to expand anywhere they can, but Jordan might be a particularly fertile ground for expansion, and a meaningful one since ISIS got its start as al-Tawhid wal-Jihad (later renamed al-Qaeda of Iraq), founded and run by Jordanian Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
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