Five people have been killed in an attack on Jordanian intelligence officers at a Palestinian refugee camp near the capital, Amman, government officials have said.
The government described the incident as a “terror attack” and said it targeted a General Intelligence Department office in the Baqa’a camp at 7am (4am GMT) on Monday, which is the first day of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.
Officials said three intelligence officers were killed, alongside a guard and a receptionist at the office.
Such attacks are rare in pro-western Jordan, which is a key member of the US-led military coalition fighting Islamic State extremists in neighbouring Syria and Iraq.
Earlier this year several Isis sympathisers were killed in a shootout during a large security operation mounted in the northern city of Irbid.
Baqa’a is the largest refugee camp in Jordan, housing more than 70,000 people. A large percentage of the country’s seven million population are descendants of Palestinian refugees who fled in the aftermath of the creation of Israel in 1948.
