Jordan repels attack on Syria border

CAIRO, June 4, 2017 : Jordanian border guards on Saturday foiled an attack on the frontier with Syria and killed gunmen riding motorcycles who tried to overrun their position, the army said.

It the armed men on motorcycles who belonged to "terrorist groups and coming from Syria" tried to attack a frontline position of the border guards at the Rukban border crossing.

Border patrols clashed with the gunmen and destroyed their bikes, the army said in a statement, without specifying how many assailants had died or give their nationalities.

One border guard suffered a hand injury, it added.

In June last year, a suicide bombing claimed by the Islamic State (IS) jihadist group killed seven soldiers in a no-man's land near the Rukban crossing with Syria.

Soon after the attack, the army declared Jordan's desert regions that stretch northeast to Syria and east to Iraq "closed military zones".

It closed the border with Syria, stranding tens of thousands of refugees fleeing the conflict in their country.

The United Nations says 60,000 Syrians are trapped in a makeshift settlement in the no man's land, and it has set up a clinic just inside Jordan to care for them.