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Report: Israel supplied Jordan with helicopters to help protect against ISIS
A Reuters report says that Israel handed over a fleet of Cobra combat helicopters to Jordan, in order to help its neighbour fend off the threat of ISIS.
With ISIS having carved out a significant autonomous area in neighbouring countries Syria and Iraq, Jordan’s leaders are concerned that the terror group has ambitions to carry out an incursion into the Hashemite kingdom. Earlier this year, Jordan carried out a series of air strikes against ISIS in Syria. During the last four years, an estimated 680,000 Syrian refugees have arrived across the porous border into Jordan to flee the country’s civil war.
The Reuters report says that last year, Israel gave Jordan around 16 decommissioned Cobra helicopters, which had been retired and replaced by US-supplied Apache helicopters instead. An anonymous US official familiar with the case is quoted saying that “These choppers are for border security” against ISIS and that the arrangement was approved by Washington which also helped overhaul the aircraft before their despatch to Jordan.
Israel and Jordan signed a peace treaty in 1994 and have enjoyed relatively warm relations since then, including cooperation on water and other common issues. However, it is thought that security cooperation pre-dates official bilateral relations. The two countries share a number of security concerns. These include the regional influence of Iran, while Israel regards Jordan as a bulwark against the encroachment of Islamist forces in Iraq and elsewhere.
Commenting on the apparent helicopter deal, Yediot Ahronot’s military analyst Alex Fishman says that it is reflective of the “special and close relationship that has been forged between Israel and Jordan in the past years.”
Meanwhile, the Syrian Civil War continues to cause havoc on the Lebanese border too. A United Nations representative said yesterday that an offensive by President Assad’s forces and their Hezbollah allies caused “unprecedented levels of destruction and many deaths among the civilian population” in the town of Zabadani near the Syria-Lebanon border.