On 9 November 2015, a

Jordan Jordan ( ar, الأردن; tr. ' ), officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan,; tr. ' is a country in Western Asia. It is situated at the crossroads of Asia, Africa, and Europe, within the Levant region, on the East Bank of the Jordan Rive ...

ian police officer opened fire on a police training center staff during their lunch break at the cafeteria in

Al-Muwaqqar Al-Muwaqqar ( ar, الموقر) is a district in the Amman Governorate of north-western Jordan. The village contains the scant ruins of an Umayyad palace, the Qasr al-Muwaqqar, one of the desert castles. Little remains of the palace today except s ...

, Amman,

, killing four, including two Americans, a South African, and a Jordanian. Six others were injured, including three Americans, a Lebanese, and two Jordanians, one of whom later died. The gunman was then killed by a fellow Jordanian officer. The attack took place on the tenth anniversary of Al-Qaeda in Iraq's

2005 Amman bombings The 2005 Amman bombings were a series of coordinated suicide bomb attacks on three hotel lobbies in Amman, Jordan, on 9 November 2005. The explosions at the Grand Hyatt Hotel, the Radisson SAS Hotel, and the Days Inn started at around 20:50 ...

. Investigations done by Jordanian officials found that the motive of the mass shooting was "financial and psychological problems of the perpetrator". The

mass shooting There is a lack of consensus on how to define a mass shooting. Most terms define a minimum of three or four victims of gun violence (not including the shooter or in an inner city) in a short period of time, although an Australian study from 20 ...

is an uncommon event in the secure country.

Attack

The attack was on personnel at the United States funded Jordan International Police Training Centre (JIPTC), a facility that principally trains Palestinian and Iraqi police officers. The facility is located in the

district of the

Amman Governorate Amman Governorate, officially known as Muhafazat al-Asima ( ar, محافظة العاصمة, English translation: The Capital Governorate), is one of the governorates in Jordan. The governorate's capital is the city of Amman, which is also the ...

, and is staffed by contractors from the United States and other countries. On the same day, King Abdullah of Jordan paid a visit to the wounded lying in the King Hussein Medical Center. According to Jordanian Minister of the Interior Salameh Hammad, the investigation concluded that Abu Ubayd acted alone.

Victims

Two Jordanians, one South African, and two U.S. nationals were killed in the attack. The wounded included a Lebanese police lieutenant, two U.S. contractors, and three Jordanian police officers. The two Jordanian translators who were killed were Kamal Malkawi and Awni Aqrabawi. The Americans were James "Damon" Creach (42), from New Tampa, Florida, and Lloyd "Carl" Fields Jr. of

Cape Coral Cape Coral is a city located in Lee County, Florida, United States, on the Gulf of Mexico. Founded in 1957 and developed as a planned community, the city's population has grown to 194,016 as of the 2020 Census, a rise of 26% from the 2010 Census ...

, Florida. They were employed by

DynCorp International DynCorp (), formally DynCorp International, was an American private military contractor. Started as an aviation company, the company also provided flight operations support, training and mentoring, international development, intelligence training ...

. The program they were working on is funded by the State Department's Bureau of Diplomatic Security and Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement.Daily star.com.lb 10 November 2015. Lebanon's English language daily newspaper.

Perpetrator

The gunman was identified as 28-year-old police officer Anwar Mohammed Salama al-Saad Abu Zaid Bani Abdu, while Al-Rai newspaper, the government's official outlet, named the assailant as officer Anwar Abu Ubayd. The perpetrator was with the Jordanian criminal investigation department before he was transferred to the police training academy.

Source of weapons

The weapons were stolen from the

CIA The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...

Timber Sycamore Timber Sycamore was a classified weapons supply and training program run by the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and supported by some Arab intelligence services, including Saudi intelligence. Launched in 2012 or 2013, it supplied ...

program.

Possible motive

On 14 November, Jordanian government held a press conference to discuss the shooting. According to Minister of Interior Affairs Salameh Hammad, the officer was declared a lone wolf, and that the motives of the shooting were not related to any terrorist organizations, rather "financial and psychological problems of the perpetrator".

References