Jordan, Syria at odds over Jordanian church attack + retaliatory strikes

Good afternoon, friends. Two things are happening to the region’s security map at the same time. The Makkah pact is being ratified and, in Egypt’s case, informally widened, while the Jordan-Syria border closed for a day after Jordanian airstrikes in retaliation for an attack on a church in Jordan over the weekend.

A Turkish parliamentary committee has approved the Makkah Joint Defense Agreement, the Associated Press reports, advancing Ankara’s ratification of the August pact that treats an armed attack on Saudi Arabia, Turkey or Pakistan as an attack on all three. The ratification came a day after Egypt’s House of Representatives, which is not a party to the pact and is reportedly weighing joining, voted to authorize “the necessary measures” to help the Kingdom defend its territory, sovereignty and holy sites against “any external aggression,” which opens the door to a more direct Egyptian role against the Houthis.

On the other side of the regional conflict: Prince Khalid bin Salman, Asim Munir and Ibrahim Kalin met Iranian security officials in Tehran on Monday, and all four sides agreed to keep talking.

Jordan said yesterday it killed at least 20 ISIS members in airstrikes on southern Syria, in retaliation for the Karak church attack on Friday that killed nine Christian men and was the deadliest on Jordan’s Christian minority since the 1950s, The National reports. Syrian authorities put the toll at seven civilians, among them three children, a woman, and an elderly man, with at least one strike landing near Mismiyah in Deraa, around 30 km south of Damascus.

Government spokesman Mohammad Al Momani said the strikes were coordinated with Syria — but Damascus denies coordination and has opened an investigation instead. Syria then shut the Nassib crossing with Jordan for the day, suspending all passenger and commercial traffic in both directions on security grounds and what the border authority called developments in Deraa, Sana reports. Hundreds of trucks, vehicles and buses backed up along about three kilometres of the highway to Jaber, according to Jordan News. Nassib-Jaber is the road freight uses between the Gulf and Europe, and Amman and Damascus have spent the two years since Al Shara took power rebuilding exactly that route.

Two things we’ll be tracking for the rest of the day: The outcome of Israel’s first elections since its devastating war on Gaza began in 2023, and the US Federal Reserve’s interest rate decision ahead of the US midterm elections. –Salma