As Israel continues to brace itself under the threat of an imminent attack from Iran or its proxy forces, including Hamas and Hezbollah, security experts are sounding the alarm that Tehran has its sights set on Jordan as its next great "terror front."
"Jordan is the last holdout," Behnam Ben Taleblu, Iran expert and senior fellow with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) told Fox News Digital. "It's the last bastion of the pro-Western or status quo order in the heartland of the northern part of the Middle East."
The security expert pointed to Iran’s growing influence and support for proxy fighters not only in Gaza, Syria, Iraq and Lebanon but further out across the Arabian Peninsula, including Yemen and Oman, where anti-Israel sentiment is on the rise.
FILE - Houthi fighters march during a rally of support for the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and against the U.S. strikes on Yemen outside Sanaa on Monday, Jan. 22, 2024. Thousands of fighters from Iran-backed groups in the Middle East are offering to come to Lebanon to join the militant Hezbollah group in its fight with Israel. (AP Photo)
"Increasingly, the regime has benefited from the rise in anti-Israel sentiment to cause instability in Jordan," Ben Taleblu said.
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Growing concern over how Tehran will use anti-Israeli sentiment in the Middle East coincided with a warning issued Monday by Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz, who said Iran was working "to establish a new eastern terror front against Israel’s major population centers."
The Israeli official said the Iranian Revolutionary Guard is coordinating with "Hamas operatives in Lebanon to smuggle weapons and funds into Jordan" with the apparent aim of destabilizing the Israeli neighbor.
Katz said smuggled arms are transported across Jordan’s western border into the West Banks’ Judea and Samaria with a particular focus on refugee camps and the goal of establishing pro-Iranian sentiment as it has done in areas like Gaza and southern Lebanon.
"The Iranian axis of evil today effectively controls refugee camps in Judea and Samaria through its proxies, leaving the Palestinian Authority powerless to act," Katz added.
his is a locator map of Israel and the Palestinian Territories. (AP Photo) (AP Photo)
Jordan’s shared border with Israel is the Jewish state’s longest shared border, reportedly stretching some 300 miles from the contested Golan Heights in the north, through the Palestinian West Bank and the Dead Sea, before ending at the Gulf of Aqaba.
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Though Katz’s warnings come as tensions between Israel and Iran have reached a historic peak, local reporting shows that Iranian-led smuggling efforts have plagued Jordanian security efforts for years.
The Jordanian regime over the last half a decade has increasingly been working to stop smuggling operations to help prevent the formation of anti-Israel terrorist cells in the West Bank.
Hundreds of people gather to follow the speech of Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah, on a screen, in Beirut, Lebanon on Nov. 3, 2023. (Houssam Shbaro/Anadolu via Getty Images)
"Ultimately [that would] be a benefit to the Islamic Republic, because it could allow for a full encirclement of Israel," Ben Taleblu said. "The one thing that stands in the way of all of this is the Jordanian monarchy and the strength of the Jordanian security services."
Jordanian officials have been working to ease tensions in the region by meeting with U.S., Israeli and Iranian officials over recent weeks following Tehran’s threat to hit the Jewish state directly.
Though even as Jordan works to maintain the status quo in the region and prevent an all-out war, it has also warned it will not become a battleground state for either nation to utilize.
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An Israeli soldier attaches an Israeli flag on top of an armoured personnel carriers (APC) near Israel's border with Gaza, in southern Israel, Monday, April 15, 2024.
"We will not be a battlefield for Iran or Israel. We informed the Iranians and the Israelis that we will not allow anyone to violate our airspace and risk the safety of our citizens," the Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said in a Saturday interview according to a Reuters report.
"We will intercept anything that passes through our airspace or think that it constitutes a threat to us or our citizens," he added.
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