Baqaa Intelligence Agency Attack (2016)
The Baqaa Intelligence Agency Attack, which occurred on June 6, 2016, in Jordan, involved a lone assailant named Mahmoud Masharfeh who opened fire at a local branch of the national intelligence agency situated near the Baqaa refugee camp. This tragic incident resulted in the deaths of five individuals, including three intelligence officers, a guard, and a receptionist. Following the attack, Masharfeh was apprehended several hours later inside a mosque. Although he had previously attempted to join ISIS and had been arrested for related activities, Jordanian authorities categorized the attack as an isolated incident without connections to any organized terrorist groups.
In the aftermath, the Jordanian government imposed a media blackout on reporting related to the attack and its subsequent trial. On August 4, 2016, Masharfeh was sentenced to death by hanging for his actions. This event occurred against a backdrop of heightened tensions in Jordan, particularly as the country dealt with the implications of hosting a significant number of Syrian refugees and maintaining stability amid regional conflicts.
Subject Terms
Baqaa Intelligence Agency Attack (2016)
Date: June 6, 2016
Place: Baqaa refugee camp, Jordan
Summary
The Baqaa intelligence agency attack was a terrorist attack that occurred in Jordan at a local branch of the national intelligence agency near the Baqaa refugee camp just north of the capital city, Amman. The assailant, identified as Mahmoud Masharfeh, entered the building with an automatic weapon and opened fire, killing three intelligence officers, a guard, and a receptionist. Jordanian police believe that the assailant was acting alone.
Key Events
- June 6, 2016—A lone gunman enters a security office across the street from the Baqaa refugee camp and opens fire, killing five people. Several hours after the attack, Jordanian police arrest Mahmoud Masharfeh inside a mosque in el-Sleihi.
- June 8, 2016—The government of Jordan issues an order preventing the country’s media from reporting news about the Baqaa attack and subsequent trial.
- August 4, 2016—Jordan’s state security court sentences Masharfeh to death.
Status
As of August 2016, the Jordanian government believed that the Baqaa camp intelligence office attack was an isolated incident and that the individual involved, Masharfeh, though an Islamic extremist, was not acting on behalf of any known terrorist organization. Two weeks after the Baqaa attack, a car bomb killed seven Jordanian soldiers near a Syrian refugee camp in northern Jordan. The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) claimed responsibility for the second attack, but authorities in Jordan do not believe the incidents were related. Jordanian media reported later that Masharfeh had been arrested on several occasions for trying to join ISIS in Syria.
In-Depth Overview
The Baqaa camp (also spelled Baqa’a) is a Palestinian refugee camp, one of six emergency camps established in 1968 to house Palestinians who left the Gaza Strip during the 1967–8 Arab-Israeli War. The camp currently holds more than one hundred thousand refugees. Though terrorist attacks have been rare in Jordan during the global War on Terror, the influx of Syrian refugees into the nation’s emergency camps has led to an increase in civil unrest. Baqaa camp is located near the Jordanian capital, Amman.
Since the early 2000s, Jordan has been a key player in the US-led coalition fighting al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and ISIS in Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Since 2014, Jordan has been conducting bombing attacks on ISIS targets in Syria and has allowed coalition planes to use Jordanian airfields to launch attacks. Despite fighting al-Qaeda and ISIS, however, terrorist attacks have been rare in Jordan—though al-Qaeda carried out three suicide bombings in 2005, killing at least sixty at three hotels in Amman.
Before seven o’clock in the morning on June 6, 2016, a lone man armed with an automatic weapon entered an office belonging to a local branch of Jordan’s national security agency, which is located across the street from the Baqaa refugee camp. Immediately upon entering the office, the assailant opened fire, killing five employees of the agency, including three security personnel. Immediately after the attack, the assailant fled the scene while police led a manhunt through Amman and surrounding areas.
Several hours later, police captain Faisal Fozan al-Odwan, from el-Sleihi, noticed a suspicious individual inside a mosque in el-Sleihi. Al-Odwan noted that the individual appeared to be armed and attempted to arrest him. The assailant drew his weapon and shot a second police officer before he was overpowered by al-Odwan, who subdued him until anti-terrorism forces arrived. Though early reports indicated the assailant attacked the intelligence officers with an automatic rifle, at the time of his arrest, the suspect was carrying a 7mm pistol.
Later identified as Mahmoud Masharfeh, a twenty-two-year-old Jordanian native, the suspect had reportedly previously been jailed for trying to enter Gaza to join an unidentified terrorist organization fighting against Hamas. Media reports claimed that Masharfeh had been trying to join ISIS since being released from prison and was therefore wanted by Jordanian intelligence agencies.
On June 8, the Jordanian police and intelligence agency issued an official gag order on any news regarding the Baqaa attack. Though members of the government and Jordanian news agencies referred to the incident as a "terrorist" attack, Masharfeh was never linked to any terrorist organization. On August 4, press reports from Jordan indicated that Masharfeh had been sentenced to death by hanging for his role in the attack on the intelligence office near Baqaa. Spokespeople for the Jordanian government also reported their suspicion that the attack on the intelligence office was committed near Baqaa camp for the purposes of deepening hostility between Jordanians and the refugees living in the camp.
Key Figures
Faisal Fozan al-Odwan: Police captain who arrested the suspect after he fled the scene of the crime.
Mahmoud Masharfeh: Jordanian national convicted of killing five individuals at the intelligence center near Baqaa.
Bibliography
Hume, T. (2016, June 7). 5 killed in attack on intelligence agency office in refugee camp in Jordan. CNN. Retrieved from http://www.cnn.com/2016/06/06/middleeast/jordan-baqaa-camp-attack/
Jordan sentences gunman to death for lethal attack. (2016, August 4). The Times of Israel. Retrieved from http://www.timesofisrael.com/jordan-sentences-gunman-to-death-for-lethal-attack/
Karadsheh, J., & Hume, T. (2016, June 21). 6 Jordanian security forces killed in car bomb attack on Syrian border. CNN. Retrieved from http://www.cnn.com/2016/06/21/middleeast/jordan-car-bomb-attack/
Ma’ayeh, S. (2016, June 7). Jordan says terrorists attack intelligence office near Amman. The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved from http://www.wsj.com/articles/jordan-says-terrorists-attack-intelligence-office-near-amman-1465206977
Sweis, R. F. (2016, June 8). Arrest made in killing of Jordanian intelligence officers. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/07/world/middleeast/jordan-palestinian-refugee-camp.html
Younes, A. (2016, June 6). Capturing the killer of Jordan’s intelligence agents. Yahoo! News. Retrieved from https://uk.news.yahoo.com/capturing-killer-jordans-intelligence-agents-142233159--spt.html