BEIRUT – Saudi Arabia believes that Jordan was complicit in the assassination of top rebel leader Zahran Alloush late last year, according to a pro-rebel online outlet.
Arabi21 cited a diplomatic source as saying that Riyadh obtained information indicating Amman was linked to the targeted airstrike on December 25 that killed the leader of Jaysh al-Islam, the most powerful rebel group operating around Damascus.
The diplomat claimed that “Jordanian security services believed that Alloush took advantage of his relations with the Saudis to violate Jordanian sovereignty by transiting his [partisans] across the country’s borders without coordinating their passage.”
“[Information of Jordan’s complicity] aroused the anger of the Kingdom, resulting in a strained relations between the [two countries],” the source also told the London-based news outlet.
The Arabi21 report comes amid warming ties between Amman and Moscow following Russia’s aerial intervention on behalf of the Bashar al-Assad regime.