Jordan shootings kill 9, including Canadian tourist

Reporting from KARAK, Jordan —  Officials say the casualty toll in a series of shooting attacks in Jordan has risen to nine dead, including a Canadian tourist, and 27 wounded.

One of Sunday’s attacks took place at a Crusader castle popular with tourists.

The shootings were the latest in a series of attacks that have challenged the pro-Western kingdom’s claim to be an oasis of calm in a region threatened by Islamic extremists.

The killing of the Canadian tourist could further hurt Jordan’s embattled tourism sector, which has declined sharply since Islamic State seized large parts of neighboring Syria and Iraq two years ago.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attacks in and near the central town of Karak, about 90 miles south of the capital, Amman.

The chain of events began when a police patrol received reports of a house fire in the town of Qatraneh in the Karak district, according to a statement by Jordan’s Public Security Directorate.

The officers responding to the call came under fire from inside the house, the statement said. Two policemen were wounded, and the assailants fled in a car, it said.

In another attack, gunmen fired on a security patrol in Karak, causing no injuries, the statement said.

Armed men also opened fire on a police station in Karak Castle, a Crusader fort, wounding members of the security forces. The statement said five or six gunmen were believed to be holed up inside the castle.

In all, four members of the security forces and a female tourist from Canada were killed in the shootings, though it was not clear if all five were killed at the castle.

Jordan faces homegrown extremism, with hundreds of Jordanians fighting alongside other Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria and several thousand more supporting the extremist group in the kingdom. Jordan is a key U.S. ally, and a member of a U.S.-led military coalition fighting Islamic State.

Over the last year, gunmen have carried out several attacks on members of the Jordanian security forces and foreign trainers. Earlier this year, Jordanian security forces engaged in a deadly shootout with suspected Islamic State sympathizers in a northern Jordanian town.

In the most recent incident, three U.S. military members were killed in a shooting outside an air base in southern Jordan in November. The three were in Jordan on a training mission and came under fire while driving into the base.

UPDATES:

11:42 a.m.: This article has been updated with the death toll rising to nine, and the number wounded to 27.

This article was originally published at 9:05 a.m.