AMMAN, Jordan – Unknown attackers fired at least three missiles from Jordan early Friday, with one narrowly missing a U.S. Navy ship docked in a Jordanian port, an attack that killed a Jordanian soldier. Another missile fell close to an airport in neighboring Israel, officials said.
The attacks were believed to have been caused by Katyusha rockets fired from a poor neighborhood on the outskirts of Aqaba, a Jordanian Red Sea port 210 miles south of the capital, Amman, officials added.
The attacks come amid a time of tension in the region marked by Israel’s withdrawal from the Palestinian Gaza and several terrorist attacks on Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula during the past year, including the July 23 attack in Sharm el-Sheik.
Jordanian soldier Ahmed Jamal Saleh was fatally wounded when a mortar sailed over a U.S. Navy ship docked in Aqaba and slammed into a warehouse, a Jordanian security official said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
The soldier died in the ambulance taking him to hospital, while another unidentified Jordanian was also wounded, the official added.