Jordan officials thwart coup attempt
Authorities in Jordan on Saturday arrested a number of top officials and a royal family member, state news reported, in what appears to have been a thwarted attempted coup.
There were also unconfirmed reports the former crown prince was under house arrest.
The arrests were announced by the state-run Petra News agency, quoting an unnamed official who said Sharif Hassan bin Zaid, a member of the royal family, and Bassem Awadallah, a prominent official who once ran the royal court, were arrested “for security reasons” along with “others” after “close monitoring.”
“An investigation into the matter is ongoing,” said the source.
The news comes as a shock in the desert kingdom, a close regional ally of the U.S. often lauded for its stability in a crisis-ridden neighborhood.
Also swept up in the dragnet – according to observers and activists on social media – was Prince Hamzah bin Hussein, onetime crown prince and stepbrother to Jordan’s
King Abdullah II. The monarch replaced him with his eldest son, Hussein, four years into his rule.
State news later quoted an unnamed security official who denied reports that a 20-vehicle force had raided Hamzah’s home in a suburb of West Amman, placing him under house arrest and detaining members of his security detail and members of his staff.
His head of office, Yasser Majali, was picked up after a heavily armed force burst into his relative’s home, according to Basma Al Majali, a family member who wrote of the incident on Twitter.
“Communication was lost with them more than three hours ago,” she tweeted.
Late Saturday night, Jordan’s Chief of Staff Lt. General Mahmoud Yousef Huneit issued a statement saying Prince Hamzah had not been detained but instead was “asked to stop movements and activities that were being employed to target Jordan’s security and stability,” adding that this was done within “the framework of comprehensive joint investigations undertaken by the security services.”
The Saudi royal court issued a statement in solidarity with King Abdullah.