Five members of the General Intelligence Department (GID) were killed early Monday in an attack at the headquarters of the secret police in Baqa’a, a northern suburb of Amman.
The attack on the security office, about 21 kilometers (13 miles) north of Amman, took place on the first day of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, said government spokesman Mohammad Momani, Minister of State for Media Affairs. The killers escaped and remain unidentified.
“The cowardly attack on the security office in the first day of Ramadan shows the criminal behavior of the terrorists,” Momani said in a statement.
The attack occurred shortly before 7 am local time. Three of the five victims were intelligence officers; the others were a guard and a receptionist at the office, according to The Guardian newspaper.
More than 100,000 people live in Baqa’a, including many who fled the 1948 war against the newly reborn State of Israel by its Arab neighbors, and the generations of descendants.
No one has yet claimed responsibility for the attack. Earlier this year, a number of Da’esh (ISIS) supporters were killed in a security operation carried out by Jordanian government troops in the northern city of Irbid.