ISIS Backers’ Influence Growing Across Jordan

'At Least 9,000' Jihadists Active in Jordan

Jordanian security forces are desperately scrambling around the nation’s desert towns on a regular basis, trying to remove ISIS flags and pro-ISIS graffiti.

An estimated 2,000 Jordanians have gone to Syria to join ISIS, but that’s only a fraction of the pro-ISIS jihadists there, with estimates of at least another 9,000 fighters inside Jordan.

Pro-ISIS Salafist groups are enormous across Jordan, with tens of thousands of backers, and while Jordanian officials are trying to keep the public displays limited, many see it as only a matter of time before they start seeing large scale attacks.

Reports out of Jordan have centered on returnees from the Syria war, many of them joining either ISIS or al-Qaeda’s Jabhat al-Nusra. The returnees noted problems getting security clearances for government jobs in Jordan, but many insist that they are confident that the growing popularity of Salafism will mean change in Jordan toward fundamentalism.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.