Rare militant attack on Jordan security compound kills 5

BAQAA REFUGEE CAMP, Jordan (AP) - One or more assailants armed with an automatic assault weapon attacked a local office of Jordan's national intelligence agency Monday, killing four guards and a receptionist in what the government called a "terrorist attack."

Government spokesman Mohammed Momani suggested Islamic militants were involved, describing the attackers as "criminal elements who don't represent our moderate religion."

Those involved remained at large hours after the morning attack, which came on the first day of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack on the intelligence office on the edge of the Palestinian refugee camp of Baqaa, near the capital, Amman.

Such attacks are relatively rare in Jordan, even though the pro-Western kingdom is on the front line in the military campaign against Islamic State extremists who control large areas of neighboring Syria and Iraq.

The shooting attack took place before 7 a.m., said Momani. He said it involved one or more attackers armed with at least one automatic weapon. They killed four guards and a receptionist, he said.

The targeted security office is a two-story building facing the Baqaa camp, which was established almost half a century ago for Palestinian refugees displaced in the conflict with Israel. The camp has a population of tens of thousands, including many Syrian refugees who have settled there since the start of the Syria conflict in 2011.

A highway separates the security compound and the camp.

Several hours after the attack, the access road to the security compound was closed. Security agents were visible outside the building, including masked members of the counter-terrorism squad.

Monday's attack came three months after Jordanian special forces clashed with IS-linked gunmen at a hideout in the northern Jordanian city of Irbid. Seven suspected Islamic State activists and a Jordanian officer were killed. The IS cell had planned attacks on military and civilian targets in the kingdom, officials said.

Over the past two years, since IS group's swift land gains in Syria and Iraq, Jordan has cracked down on suspected sympathizers to prevent the extremists from recruiting inside its borders.

Several hundred Jordanians have been sentenced to prison by special military courts for expressing support for IS on social media.

Jordan is part of the U.S.-led military campaign against Islamic State.

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Associated Press writers Karin Laub in Amman, Jordan, and Mohammed Daraghmeh in Ramallah, West Bank, contributed to this report.

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This story has been corrected to show that one of those killed was a guard, not a handyman.