Jordan tackles homegrown Islamists as it joins attacks on Isis

The bearded man stood in a cage at Amman's state security court, accused of posting messages and videos sympathetic to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isis) on Facebook.

Wassim Abu Ayesh, who was arraigned last week under Jordan's recently expanded antiterrorism law, is one of at least 60 people arrested for suspected jihadi activities in a crackdown by the security forces after a US-led bombing campaign against Isis began last month. The security forces have also put pressure on clerics, educators and others to denounce the radical Islamist group.

The security campaign is part of a two-pronged war that Jordan has launched as a key Arab member of the US-led anti-Isis coalition. Amman has put its airfields, training centres, and assets of its powerful state security service at the coalition's disposal. Jordanian jets have carried out at least two air strikes against Syria.

For the kingdom, which borders Syria and Iraq and is home to 1.4m Syrian refugees and 250,000 Iraqis, the stakes could not be higher. Its leaders want to fight what they describe as a small but potentially dangerous internal threat from radical Islamists while highlighting their role as an essential ally to the US, which supplies the country with more than $1bn of aid a year.

King Abdullah, Jordan's pro-western monarch used a speech to the UN General Assembly to describe the anti-Isis campaign as "the fight of our times".

Mohammad al-Momani, a government spokesman, said: "We in Jordan strongly believe this is the wise thing to do, this is the right thing to do, this is the moral thing to do. You don't wait until a terrorist organisation grows and gets stronger and then try to do something: you should do something immediately."

However, Amman's involvement in the coalition has divided Jordanians and brought accusations from human rights campaigners of a heavy-handed crackdown on free speech.

In trying to counteract Isis in sermons and social media the security services acknowledge that they are trying to control how religion is disseminated.

"We continue to ask the clerics, the academicians, the educators to speak about the true nature of Islam," Mr al-Momani said.

Last month Jordanian officials dropped terrorism charges against Abu Qatada, a radical Islamist preacher after he denounced Isis from prison, calling the group "heretics" and "dogs".

In June they also released from prison Abu Mohammed al-Maqdisi, another Salafi ideologue who also attacked Isis - although since his release he has also described the US-led war as a "crusader campaign".

Human rights campaigners say Jordan's crackdown on Islamist activity has caught others in its net.

"This is affecting the freedom of speech and opinion across the country," said Moussa Abdallad, the lawyer representing Abu Ayesh and who has represented other radical Islamists in Jordan. "It has not just affected jihadis and Islamists: it is affecting leftists and journalists."

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Jordan's military campaign also puts the country in a delicate position vis a vis its neighbours - notably Bashar al-Assad's regime in Syria, which has accused Jordan of meddling in its civil war.

In Jordan's teeming Syrian and Iraqi exile communities, the kingdom's entry to the coalition has raised hopes that it will lend itself as a training or staging ground to fight future ground operations against Isis, or restore order once the radical group is defeated.

Jordanian officials are giving few details of their country's contribution to the military campaign. When asked last week whether Syrian rebels would be trained in Jordan, Hussain al-Majaili, the interior minister responded cryptically: "We will not hesitate to do anything to defend our country and for the sake of the security of our country".

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"There has been a general discussion that in the near future there will be military co-operation between the FSA and the US but there has been no concrete discussion in terms of military advisers or co-operation," said Assad al-Zoubi, a member of the rebel group's supreme council for southern Syria, based in Jordan.

Iraqi tribes and Sunni opposition groups, who have used Amman as a base since the days of Saddam Hussein, held a "conference to save Iraq" in July. Some want to form a militia. Jordanian officials say they would, if asked, help train a future Iraqi national guard, which has been mooted as a measure to bolster the country's shaky army.

"If Jordan just gives us the room, we need 60 days to get an army prepared to take on the Islamic State [Isis]," said Abdul Hakim al-Abed, an opposition organiser in Jordan.

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