Jordanian security forces said late Sunday that they had killed four gunmen who shot 10 people dead, including a Canadian tourist, in a series of attacks during the day.
Security forces were searching the Crusader-era castle of al-Karak, where the gunmen had holed themselves up after their initial attacks, in case any surviving militants were hiding there, a statement published by official news agency Petra said.
The final toll stood at seven members of the security forces, two Jordanian civilians, and a Canadian woman. Another 30 people, including two foreigners, were injured, Petra reported.
Official accounts said that the attack started when gunmen shot at security officers responding to reports of a fire in a house near al-Karak. Security forces subsequently found explosives and suicide belts in the house.
Independent newspaper al-Ghad reported that the incident was set off when the son of a man who had unwittingly rented a flat to the gunmen thought he smelled gunpowder in the building and called police.
The gunmen fled after the initial clash, Petra reported. Another police patrol came under fire later, before the gunmen stormed al-Karak Castle, a well-known tourist attraction, firing on the town’s police station from inside the castle.
The gunmen at one point took 14 people hostage inside the castle, including Malaysian tourists, according to independent newspaper
al-Ghad.
Elite security forces later freed some of the hostages, the paper reported online.
Gunfire was reported late into the evening, and mosque loudspeakers in al-Karak town called for people to stay away from the castle as
clashes between the insurgents and security forces continued, media reports said.
No group has claimed responsibility for the attack. In June, a Jordanian security outpost near the Syrian border was the target of a deadly attack claimed by the Islamic militant militia.
Canadian Foreign Minister Stephane Dion expressed his sympathy to all those affected by the “heinous attack” in a Twitter message.
