If there are disturbances in other countries as a result of US-UK war mongering in Iraq, this town in Jordan may be the first boiling point…
Tension simmers in Jordanian town
It is pockmarked with holes made by shells from tanks and helicopter gunships, while bullets are still embedded in the walls. “They claimed we had Islamic terrorists in our house,” says 58-year-old Saoud, who begs me to use a false name in case the army and police return. “That’s a lie because the only people they found here were women and children.” Last November government forces surrounded this dusty town of 70,000 people, cut off all the phone lines and mounted an aggressive, some critics say brutal, search of its homes and streets. They were looking for a local militant Islamist leader, Muhammad Shalabi, also known as Abu Sayyaf. The government says it wanted to question him as part of an inquiry into gun running and drugs smuggling in the region. An independent report says however they wanted to question Mr Shalabi in relation to the murder of an American citizen in the capital, Amman.
Warnings of uprising
They never found him but the resulting gun battles with the largely well-armed local population left six dead. The town of Maan is the exception in Jordan, a country which up until now has gone out of its way to exude stability and prosperity, an image aimed at promoting tourism, its biggest earner. The Jordanian Government’s grip on Maan however has never been totally secure and now local leaders and analysts have warned that a war in neighbouring Iraq could spark off a bloody uprising here. Armoured personnel carriers now patrol its streets and soldiers stand on street corners giving it the feel of a town under siege.
‘Boiling over’
Across from a group of soldiers a local merchant, Hamid Gayley, is eyeing them from the entrance to his shop. “My son was shot and killed by an army sniper last November and they never bothered to find out who did it,” he says. Mr Gayley shakes head when asked about the mood of the town. “This place is boiling over with rage,” he says. A possible American invasion of Iraq has added another explosive ingredient to this volatile situation. The largely tribal population feel the nearby borders of Iraq and Saudi Arabia to be a colonial anachronism. Members of their tribes are as likely to be found in both countries and therefore would consider an attack on them to akin to an attack on Maan itself.
Radicalised
In a house near the entrance to the town the tribal committee which essentially runs Maan is meeting to discuss the fragile peace which now exists. A word from the committee could stop or start an uprising, but now the bitterness is such that even the committee fears it has lost any influence over a younger generation impoverished by unemployment and radicalised by the likes of Shalabi. “If the war starts in Iraq then we won’t be able to control what they will do,” says Sheikh Adel Mahameed. “This town will be on fire.”