Jordanian officer killed, four injured in Afghanistan

May 22, 2011, 18:04 GMT

Amman - A Jordanian officer was killed and four soldiers injured Sunday when a roadside bomb exploded as a humanitarian convoy passed by in the Afghan province of Lugar, a spokesman for the Jordanian armed forces said in a statement.

The statement, carried by the official Petra news agency, identified the officer killed as First Lieutenant Majed Abu Qudairi. 'The four wounded are in good health,' the Army spokesman said.

'The general command of the armed forces is making the necessary arrangements with the Jordanian contingent in Afghanistan to bring home the martyr and the wounded, so that they can receive treatment at Jordanian hospitals,' he added.

This is the second Jordanian fatality in Afghanistan in less than 18 months.

On December 30, 2009, a Jordanian intelligence officer, Captain Ali bin Zeid, was killed along with seven members of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) at a US forward base in the eastern province of Khost when a Jordanian doctor, Humam Balawi, carried out a suicide attack.

Balawi turned out later to have been a double agent of the terrorist al-Qaeda organization and the Jordanian Intelligence Department.

In a related development, Jordan's top criminal court on Sunday acquitted two prominent Jordanian writers of charges directed against them for strongly criticizing Jordan's intelligence cooperation with the United States in Afghanistan.

Sofian Tal and Muwaffaq Mahadin were found not guilty on the charges of offending ties with a foreign country, provoking sectarian and racial feuds and calling for the overthrow of constitutional government through violent means.

The new fatality is expected to stir a new wave of criticism inside Jordan, which has witnessed a series of demonstrations over the past four months to press demands for reform and fighting corruption.

The authorities so far kept a tight lid on the number of Jordanian troops operating in Afghanistan to support humanitarian operations there, but NATO's website put the number at 90 alongside other contributions to the multinational force.

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