By Middle East Eye exclusively reports Britain and Jordan’s military partnership to tackle militants in Somalia linked to Islamic State group
British and Jordanian special forces are secretly working together to target militant groups operating in war-torn Somalia, Middle East Eye can reveal.
Jordanian King Abdullah II Ibn Hussein told US congressional leaders in the week of 11 January that his kingdom’s forces had turned to Britain in the fight against Islamic State because of a lack of direction from Washington.
“The UK’s SAS is now getting involved in operations with Jordanian special forces,” he said, according to a detailed account of the meeting seen by MEE.
“Jordan is looking at al-Shabab because no one was really looking at the issue, and we cannot separate this issue, and the need to look at all the hot spots in the map,” the king added, referring to the Islamist militant group that is based in Somalia and which both IS and al-Qaeda seek to have influence over.
“We have a rapid deployment force that will stand with the British and Kenya and is ready to go over the border [into Somalia].”
Abdullah said that “we started with al-Shabab, as they feed into Libya,” where chaos and conflict have reigned since the Nato-backed 2011 overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi.
The Jordanian king also revealed in his Washington meeting that his Special Forces troops were going to be embedded with the SAS in operations in Libya.