In January 2013, the Jordanian armed forces prevented a smuggling attempt across the Syrian border, claiming that they had stopped a “major shipment of arms, ammunition, explosives and drugs.” It was no isolated event. In 2013 alone, smuggling activity across Jordan’s border with Syria, which is over 230 miles long, increased by more than 300 percent.
The impact of Syria’s crisis on Jordan, its smaller southern neighbor, has been most clearly seen in the form of a massive influx of Syrian refugees, now numbering some 600,000 people. But there are other, less visible, consequences that also contribute to the erosion of Jordan’s internal stability.
Smuggling and Arms Trafficking
The Jordanian border is difficult to police. There are more than 40 crossing points, and they are used by both refugees fleeing Syria’s civil war and smugglers. Although border guards receive Syrians seeking refuge in Jordan on a daily basis, they must increasingly watch for infiltrators from both sides.
Whether those behind the trafficking are simply criminals in search of quick profits or political groups backing the uprising against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is uncertain. While most of the supplies to Syria’s rebels come through Turkey and Iraq, the insurgency in southern Syria is partly fueled from Jordan. Several border towns, such as Tell Shihab, Khirbet Ghazaleh, and Saham al-Jawlan, have developed into rebel strongholds that serve both as hubs for displaced persons and as key transit points on the smuggling routes between Syria and Jordan.
There is a risk that the flow of weapons and fighters into Syria will contribute to lawlessness and insecurity in Jordan, and the issue is politically sensitive. In October 2013, Jordan tried three Syrians for allegedly attempting to smuggle 36 detonators into Syria on behalf of antigovernment rebels, thereby exposing the kingdom to the danger of Syrian government reprisal.
Tribal Tensions
In the past, Syrian rebels could count on tribal support in the border areas, where relatives on the Jordanian side would aid them with money and weapons. This has particularly been the case in Deraa, a town with strong tribal and family ties across the border. But the efficiency of tribal support from Jordan now seems to be decreasing, as the Jordanian government is tightening its porous border controls.
In addition to this, attitudes among Jordanians are changing. Previously, a sense of tribal loyalty drove many northern Jordanians to support Syria’s uprising and shelter tribal kinsmen from over the border. However, the increased strain on jobs and resources, as well as the sheer number of refugees, has reversed this trend. In the northern Mafraq district, residents even erected a mock “Jordanian refugee camp” to protest escalating rents and the rising prices of basic goods, both sparked by the influx of Syrians.
More than 200 refugees were forcibly returned to Syria after protests broke out at the Zaatari refugee camp in 2012, and hundreds more Syrians have been forcibly returned this year. Authorities worry that as tensions between Syrian refugees and Jordanians increase because of strains on local resources, the presence of arms will increase the risk of civilian violence.
The Black September Complex
Following the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who arrived in the country in previous decades, the prospect of another wave of refugees from Syria is daunting for many Jordanians, particularly from the indigenous East Bank tribes. Members of Syria’s Palestinian community are particularly exposed to Jordanian resentment against the refugees, and the government has been accused of denying entry to Syrians of Palestinian origin.
Memories of the 1970 Black September civil war between the Jordanian government and Palestinian refugee militias weigh heavily on many East Bankers’ minds, and they make Jordanian authorities wary of any political activity among the Syrian refugees. But there is no sign of the hundreds of thousands of Syrians returning to their homeland anytime soon—and for Jordan, the spillover from Syria is likely to continue.
Nikita Malik is a researcher from the universities of Oxford and Cambridge. She is currently conducting fieldwork in Jordan. Follow her work on www.nikitamalik.com, or @nixmalik on Twitter.
Comments(5)
America, in particular the Central Intelligence Agency, has sent most of its weaponry to the Syrian opposition through Jordan. As American support increases or decreases, how will Jordan's security increase or decrease?
Hi Austin, thanks for reading the piece and for your comment. It is indeed important to determine whether US weaponry and Jordanian security are correlated - and if the relationship is a positive or negative with time, and with the added factor of external support from third parties. Aron Lund covers foreign influence on the Jordanian border this week - if you haven't read it already (http://carnegieendowment.org/syriaincrisis/?fa=54522). The threat of arms is escalating violence, as illustrated yesterday with the death of an armed individual at the border (http://en.ammonnews.net/article). Moreover, while Obama has pledged $1 billion in loan guarantees to Jordan (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/10640895/Syria-Barack-Obama-threatens-to-apply-more-pressure-on-Assad-regime.html), this stimulus rests on two premises: that of potential and probable default, and the credibility of the United States as mediator.
--the spillover from Syria-- So this disturbance and instability in Syria have disturbed almost all the neighboring countries. Palestinian issue has not yet been resolved and another turbulence has started. It will be no less than a miracle when the Middle East will be calm and peaceful area!
Hi Javed. I agree that it is increasingly important to monitor the domino effect when it comes to civil war and resulting violence. However, inter-nation loyalties are difficult to track and one can only hope that an inherent desire for peace in the long run will lead to stability.
This is in continuation of a few incisive articles you have written earlier on the fall out of the Syrian crisis on Jordan society, economy and polity- the schisms it has caused within the Jordanian society which has a large population of Palestine origin, the Christians who make up almost 6% of Jordan, the tensions within the tribal communities who now have to share the limited resources along with the Syrian refugees , increasing criminalisation on the border due to arms smuggling, the serious political implications it has for the Hashemite regime which has to delicately manage its traditional tribal allies with the new responsibility of feeding the refugees with means that are not exactly unlimited, and the dilemma it poses for a pro American regime to stop use of its territory for supply of arms to Syria even as it continues to have reservations about the Syrian rebels. I would be interested to know how school education of children of refugees is being organised. Are they being sent to the general schools in Jordan or are they being taught in exclusive madrasas as was being done in the camps of Afghan refugees in Pakistan in the 1980s and 1990s? Besides school education, there could be yet other areas and processes that need to be identified as long term agents of radicalisation of the Jordanian society.
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