Three foreign contractors reportedly shot dead by Jordanian police officer

Three security instructors – two Americans and one South African – were shot dead Monday by a Jordanian police officer at the U.S.-funded Jordan worldwide Police Training Center (JIPTC) outside the capital, Amman.

The officer was killed in a shootout at the centre near Amman, Jordanian authorities said. “The investigation is ongoing and it is premature to speculate on motive at this point”, a statement said.

The two Americans were working for the US State Department’s worldwide Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs Bureau training Palestinian security forces.

The death toll rose “after a Jordanian victim succumbed to wounds sustained during the shooting” at the Jordanian global Police Training Centre, the embassy in Washington said.

“We understand that several people were killed, but I’m reticent to give out a final number as the numbers have changed a little bit throughout the day”.

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who later became commander of al-Qaida in Iraq, was sentenced to death in absentia for ordering the killing.

BBC Middle East correspondent Kevin Connolly says Jordan’s kingdom directs a firmly pro-Western path in the turbulent waters.

Jordan’s spokesman Mohammad Momani said the attacker was shot dead by Jordanian security forces; he did not commit suicide as security forces earlier reported.

A South African contractor and the police officer also died in the violence, Petra said.

“We are in contact with the appropriate Jordanian authorities, who have offered their full support”, an embassy spokesman told CNN.

The Jordan Times newspaper quoted an unnamed relative of the assailant as saying he was Anwar Abu Zaid, a 28-year-old police captain and university graduate who was married with two children and was from the northern Jordanian village of Rimoun. Jordan’s King Abdullah believes ISIL poses an existentialist threat to the kingdom.

Such cooperation has deepened in recent years, with the upheavals of the Arab Spring uprisings and the rise of Islamic militancy in the region, said Dwairi, a former commander of Jordan’s Engineering Corps. In the last 18 months, the training has included on drilling Iraqi troops in how to fight Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil), which has seized large swathes of north and western Iraq.