Jordan’s powerful tribes on collision course with monarchy over alleged royal plot
AMMAN, Jordan — It all began with cake. Sakher Fayez, a Jordanian activist, was celebrating his birthday with friends and relatives April 3 at his family’s apartment building in Amman’s upscale Khaldah district.
Around 4 p.m., a deliveryman came by with a cake no one had ordered. When Fayez’s 16-yearold son opened the door, more than a dozen masked gunmen — dressed in black and bristling with machine guns — burst in, grabbing everyone in their path as they fanned out through the house.
“I can’t describe the screaming, the women and kids shouting. They pushed us into the bedroom as they searched the house. They got our passports, took our mobiles,” said Sahar, Fayez’s sister.
“They cornered my nephew and threatened to shoot him when he tried to run away. This isn’t the sort of thing we’re used to in Jordan.”
The assault on Fayez’s house was part of a synchronized government operation, with teams blitzing across different parts of the kingdom in blacked-out SUVs to capture some 18 associates of Prince Hamzah, who officials said were all part of a foreignbacked plot to “destabilize Jordan’s
security and stability.”
One strike force overran the home of Yasser Majali, the former crown prince’s head of office, near the city of Karak, about 55 miles south of Amman. As with Fayez, the gunmen handcuffed and manhandled Majali into a car in front of horrified family members. A relative, Samir Majali, was out shopping on the area’s main thoroughfare when four vehicles surrounded his car.
“Someone called me from the market, told me Samir had been taken and his car was in the middle of the street,” said Mohammad Majali, Samir’s brother. “They didn’t even let him park.”
As the names of some those captured seeped out — many are still unknown — Jordanians were shocked. Most of those arrested hailed from the country’s so-called East Bank tribes, the powerful clans that for decades had been the monarchy’s sword and shield, its soldiers and statesmen. East Bankers consider themselves the country’s Indigenous inhabitants, rather than the Jordanians of Palestinian origin who came from areas west of the Jordan River.
The arrests, officials say, were the result of a year-long surveillance operation by the army, police and intelligence service. In their telling, they struck just before the zero hour, averting a wave of chaos and discontent that Prince Hamzah hoped to unleash and ride into the palace to replace his half brother, King Abdullah II.
But more than a week after the raids, the government has released no details of the purported sedition. A gag order on the media, leaked recordings of Hamzah’s fightback against the officials who came to confront him and his near-disappearance from public view have fueled widespread skepticism of the official palace line.
The government insists the plot has been “contained,” with King Abdullah and other royal family members displaying a united front Sunday during Jordan’s centennial celebration.