A security source informed Reuters that "three fugitive Jordanians were killed today, Sunday, in an exchange of gunfire with a special security force." The source noted that "one of them was involved in the murder of a senior police officer during unrest that erupted at the end of last year." The police stated later that "the other two men who were killed had escaped from a high-security prison a few days ago while being held on 'terrorism-related charges'."
In the days following the incident, authorities began pursuing the perpetrators, whom they claimed "subscribe to the ideology of the Islamic State." Three other police officers and a suspect were killed in the operation. At that time, police revealed that they had "found a large quantity of weapons in a cache used by militants, some of whom were connected to extremist Islamic groups that fought in the civil war in Syria and attempted to exploit the unrest to destabilize Jordan."
The unrest came to an end after authorities deployed hundreds of soldiers to quell the rioters from the Bedouin areas who had closed a highway leading to the main port of Aqaba, resulting in losses estimated in the tens of millions of dollars. An unknown assailant had killed the police officer during clashes with protesters over rising fuel prices in a town near the impoverished southern city of Ma'an.
