Extensive security measures are in place in Jordan to ensure that terrorist groups don’t cause instability or infiltrate the border with Israel.

A tourist policeman at the entrance to the archeological site at Jerash (an ancient Roman city) in Jordan. [Rhonda Spivak photo]

In Umm Qais in northern Jordan, which borders on Israel and the Golan Heights, it is impossible to enter or leave the village without passing through Jordanian army checkpoints with armed soldiers and tanks. In the village, where most men attend prayers daily at the central mosque, there are many Jordanians of Palestinian origin.

“Security is especially tight here because the Jordanian government is worried about Islamic extremists getting to the border with Israel and conducting terrorist attacks or undermining King Abdullah’s [Hashemite] regime,” said Anna, a middle-aged German volunteer at the Umm Qais archeological site, who did not want to give her last name.

“Northern Jordan traditionally has been the centre of Palestinian extremism,” she said. “There is a big Palestinian refugee camp in the city of Irbid, less than an hour’s drive from here. In Black September in 1974, Irbid was considered the stronghold of Yasser Arafat and Palestinian nationalists [who challenged the Hashemite regime].”

Catherina, another German volunteer at the site who wished to remain anonymous, added: “I was in Irbid the other day, and a soldier got on the city bus to look at everyone’s passport. He wasn’t interested in women’s passports but in the men’s. The regime is fearful of Muslim extremists who want to carry out terrorist attacks… There are concerns that there are Al Qaeda cells around here.”

 Israeli security officials have reportedly been concerned that Al Qaeda might try to kidnap an Israeli farmer or soldier near the Jordan Valley.

 Al Qaeda’s presence in northern Jordan is not new. An Al Qaeda group is believed to be behind an attack last year on a Jordanian resort not far from Umm Qais, near Israel’s Kibbutz Ein Gev on the Sea of Galilee. Additionally, an Al Qaeda group is believed to have been responsible for the firing of a Katyusha rocket from Jordan into Eilat.

 Numerous police are located at tourist sites throughout Jordan since the triple suicide bombing in November 2005 of three western-owned hotels in Amman (the Renaissance, the Hyatt Regency and Days Inn), carried out by the Iraqi branch of Al Qaeda led by the Jordanian militant Abu Musab Zarqawi. The blast killed 60 people.

Many Israelis are wary of travelling to Amman since a deranged gunman attacked western tourists in broad daylight in the city’s downtown Roman Theatre in 2006, claiming to have acted in response to the fighting in the Second Lebanon War.

An American institution in Amman currently does not display an American flag or any other identifier. And people are nervous about working in locations that are obviously American.

“I thought about playing piano and singing regularly at the Holiday Inn Hotel in Amman, but decided not to because it is too high profile,” said Danny, an American singer who has been living in Amman for a few years.

Hotels frequented by tourists have extensive security, far more than their counterparts in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv or Netanya. In the parking lot of the Marriot Hotel in Amman, guards check both the underside and inside of vehicles entering the hotel complex. Anyone entering the hotel must go through airport-style security procedures, including luggage scanning as well as walk-through detectors. A sign in the hotel elevator reads: “This elevator is under electronic surveillance.”

This year, Jordanian authorities banned all events marking the Naqba, or “Catastrophe,” a term used by Palestinians to refer to the creation of the State of Israel 60 years ago. A number of pro-Palestinian groups and Jordanian opposition parties had been planning to hold a rally in Amman. This event and other “illegal” public gatherings were disallowed.

“[Most] people in this country are interested in living in peace,” said Jutta Haesner, director of the German Protestant Institute of Archeology in Amman. “[Jordanians] don’t want Iran or Syria to get them into trouble. They see the refugees from Iraq coming here and what kind of trouble there is in Iraq, and they don’t want to be part of it.”

However, as Israel turns 60, King Abdullah is reportedly concerned about the ongoing crisis in Gaza and fearful that the instability there could lead to a Hamas takeover of the West Bank, which would have negative implications for Jordan.

Large billboards of King Abdullah and his late father, King Hussein, are located throughout the kingdom, a reminder to all of who is in charge of the country.