Abed Shihadeh a.k.a. Abu Mohammed Al Tahawi, a hardline Islamist leader on trial with over 60 other Salafi Jihadists for inciting violence in April 2011, challenged the court’s authority and asked to be freed on bail. Over 700 Syrian refugees entered Jordan in the past 48 hours. Border guards foiled an attempt on April 5 to smuggle “huge caches of light and medium weapons and explosives” into Jordan from Syria. On April 2, the State Security Court sentenced eight terrorists in a 2004 plot by Azmi al Jayousi, a Jordanian al Qaeda operative who planned to kill at least 80,000 people with toxic chemicals; six received life terms and two others were sentenced to 15 years each.
