U.S. officials say the security camera video shows several American vehicles stopped in broad daylight at the entrance to the Jordanian air field where the Green Berets were based. The first was allowed to pass through the gate, but then a guard suddenly opened fire on the second vehicle, killing both Americans inside. The Americans in the third and fourth vehicles jumped out and started returning fire. The Jordanian guard shot and killed one of them before he was wounded by the other.
This is not to say that it was a jihadi attack. Who knows, perhaps one of the Americans dated the Jordanian guard's sister, or something.
Jordan would be tight-lipped regardless just to avoid the publicity of hosting so many foreign troops who are battling ISIL and Assad in Syria by providing support to various armed groups.
And having a jihadi sympathizer would be really bad. Jordan, while a solid American ally these days, is sort of a minority-based government, after all. The once-nomadic Bedouin who are perhaps 40% of the population are considered the monarchy's base of support. They are Arab, like most of the country, but different.
And Jordan is sensitive to the influence of forces from outside of the country that could threaten the monarchy.
And I will say again that the ridiculous amount of time it has taken for us to deal with ISIL forging a proto-state in Iraq and Syria is giving our enemies time to do us harm. If this time we've granted ISIL is destabilizing Jordan by allowing ISIL-style jihadis to gain recruits in Jordan, we could well suffer a big loss despite the prospects of finally capturing Mosul and ending the caliphate (although not sub-state terrorism) in Iraq sometime within the next several months.
So I imagine we are walking on eggs as we try to figure out how this happened--and how to prevent it from happening again. As well as how widespread such influence could be.
Let's hope somebody's sister was involved.
