Fathers who want answers for why their army sons died
Jordanian soldier on trial for murder of three US soldiers
AMMAN // The fathers of two US soldiers shot dead at a military airbase in Jordan last year are still searching for answers. James Moriarty and Brian McEnroe have been attending the trial this week of Maarek Abu Tayeh, the Jordanian soldier accused of opening fire on an American military convoy as it entered the King Faisal airbase in Jafer in November 2016.
Their sons, Staff Sgt James Moriarty, 27, and Staff Sgt Kevin McEnroe, 30, were killed along with Staff Sgt Matthew Lewellen, 27.
Abu Tayeh pleaded not guilty at a military court in Amman last week to the premeditated murder of the three servicemen.
US special forces have been training vetted Syrian rebel groups at the base, which included training on fighting ISIL in southern Syria, as part of a CIA programme that has been operating in the past few years.
The three men were all from the 5th Special Forces group, based at Fort Campbell, Kentucky.
“I have got less answers than I had when I came over,” Mr Moriarty, a lawyer from Houston, said yesterday.
Mr Moriarty viewed seven minutes of video surveillance footage that captured the incident in which his son died.
“I watched from the beginning of the shooting until my son is shot and I see incredibly aggressive behaviour,” he said. “I cannot fathom what Abu Tayeh was thinking. If he thought he heard a gunshot, why would he open fire on someone who was five feet away from him, who was clearly not a threat? Why did he shoot to kill?”
The incident is a further embarrassment for Jordan, a key US ally, after a Jordanian captain shot dead five people, including two American contractors, at a police training centre near Amman in November 2015.
After last year’s shootings, Jordan initially said the US soldiers failed to heed orders by Jordanian troops to stop at the gate of the airbase, and opened fire with their pistols, triggering the shootout.
Angered by Jordan’s statement, which sought to blame the three special forces, the US embassy said investigators were considering all potential motives and had not ruled out terrorism. The Jordanian government then retracted the first statement, and issued another saying only that there had been an exchange of fire.
It was Moriarty’s third mission abroad, and McEnroe’s fifth overseas mission.
In the past few days, the court has heard evidence from nearly a dozen witnesses. The last witness will appear today.
“My first glimmer of hope was when the chief judge brought up the point: where do the rules of engagement allow you to open fire indiscriminately, when you are fired upon? Or are you required to identify the source of fire? I cannot express the range of negative emotions I have about losing my son,” Mr Moriarty said.
Mr McEnroe said his son and his two comrades had been entering and leaving the airbase for months and it was not conceivable that they would shoot with their pistols.
“Does it make any sense at all that a special forces soldier – even a group of them – would attempt to attack a gate at a base that they have access to anyway in the first place?
“Why would they attack with pistols when they are going up against two M16s, a machinegun, up in the air and another on the truck and another guard carrying a machinegun as well? What possible motivation did they have?
“The FBI forensics found no evidence of any exit holes in any of the vehicles. “My son’s and Matthew Lewellen’s weapons were both examined and neither one had been fired. It is hard to fathom – not what happened, but why it happened. That’s the biggest question we have. Why did he do this?”