أثر اللجوء السوري من الحدود الشمالية على الأمن القومي الأردني

Abstract

This Study aims to elucidate the risks associated with the refuge of Syrians to the Jordanian State and its repercussions on its national security on the one hand, and the interaction with the political mind with such presence politically and in terms of security on the other, particularly in the shadow of the rise in the number of Syrian refugees whose numbers approach around one million and 400 thousand ever since the inception of the Syrian crisis in the year 2011 to date, 84% of whom live in northern cities and villages abutting the Syrian border. In actual fact, the threats facing Jordan resulting from the Syrian refugees is not only associated with the direct security and military threats which exist in fact due to the joining by between 2000 to 4000 Jordanians of ISIS and other extremist terrorist organizations. Moreover, and emphatically, there are economic and social threats, specifically in the northern areas which have begun to suffer from water shortages, a rise in the prices of consumer goods and house rents, and an increase in the number of Syrian students in Jordanian schools whose numbers in the northern governorates of Irbid, Mafrak, and Zarqa have reached 140 thousand students, not to mention the fact that those Syrian refugees compete with Jordanians for jobs. Notwithstanding the fact that there is no tangible proof indicating the involvement of Syrian refugees in terrorist activities against Jordan, the sheer presence of such numbers of refugees who presently constitute around 40% of the population is a “time bomb” imperiling Jordanian national security in its entirety given that the government does not know with precision the intellectual and political inclinations of the refugees, particularly after ISIS carried out four terrorist operations encompassing Jordanian territories from the north, the middle region and the south thereby targeting Jordan’s political, social and political security; a state that is known for its stability and calm in the shadow of what is characterized by the media discourse as the “Arab Spring.”