Was Hamas behind the rocket factory discovered in Jordan? ~ Elder Of Ziyon

Tuesday, April 15, 2025

Was Hamas behind the rocket factory discovered in Jordan?

Jordan said on Tuesday it had arrested 16 people linked to the Muslim Brotherhood who were trained and financed in Lebanon and had plotted attacks on targets inside the kingdom involving rockets and drones.

Authorities said at least one rocket was ready to be launched as part of an operation that had been under surveillance by security forces since 2021.

A security source said the suspects were connected to the Muslim Brotherhood, the country's largest opposition group, while the head of the cell who trained some of its members was based in Lebanon.

The Brotherhood have been accused of instigating anti-government street protests in Jordan, which has a large Palestinian population.

Security forces found a rocket manufacturing facility alongside a drone factory, according to a statement by the General Intelligence Department released on state media.

"The plot aimed at harming national security, sowing chaos and causing material destruction inside the kingdom," the statement said.

The original version of the story linked the plot to Hamas. That has been excised from the newer versions of the article.

Is there a Hamas connection?

It seems unlikely to me that the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan would want to turn explicitly violent. It knows that Jordan would crack down on them mercilessly. The MB would rather remain in the background, feeding stories to media, quietly supporting anti-government protests, but trying to build an arsenal where the targets are within Jordan seems far-fetched.

Jordanian media is featuring this story with extra details:

The cell, which was preoccupied with dark plans aimed at undermining national security, included three main members. It began its plans after a main instigator named Ibrahim Mohammed proposed the idea of manufacturing missiles in Jordan illegally. Ibrahim, who belongs to the unlicensed Muslim Brotherhood group, according to the confessions of the cell's defendants, is the same main defendant who is being tried before the State Security Court in the case of transporting and storing approximately 30 kg of TNT, C4, and SEMTEX-H, highly explosive materials.

The report indicated that the instigator Ibrahim arranged for two members of the weapons manufacturing cell (Abdullah Hisham and Moaz al-Ghanem) to visit Lebanon. The visits were aimed at connecting with the organizational official in Beirut for planning and training on implementing the plan, while the task of transferring funds from abroad was assigned to the third member (Mohsen al-Ghanem).

The Lebanese connection and funding makes this sound like an Iranian plot with Hamas and Hezbollah, not a Muslim Brotherhood plot.

If this was Iran or Hamas, Jordan would not want to publicize this either way. If it was Hamas as the primary instigator, then the rocket fire would be aimed at Israel and would be an attempt for Israel to respond and, they would hope, start a war or at least drop the Jordan/Israel peace deal.

If Iran was behind it, Jordan would not risk an international incident over this.

Plus, Jordan hates the MB, and would happily pin this on them, especially since Hamas is linked to the Brotherhood as well.

But the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan being behind this? That angle makes little sense.