AMMAN, August 12, 2018 (News Wires) - Four members of the Jordanian security forces and three "terrorists" have been killed during a raid on a militant hideout after an officer died in a bomb blast near the capital, the government said on Sunday. Five suspects were also arrested during Saturday's raid in connection with the home-made bomb that exploded under a patrol car at a music festival. A joint unit of special forces, police and army troops raided a house in the town of Salt northwest of Amman in search of a suspected "terrorist cell", government spokeswoman Jumana Ghneimat said. She said the militants were sought in connection with Friday night's bombing that killed a police sergeant and wounded six others in the town of Al-Fuhais west of Amman. "The suspects refused to surrender and opened heavy fire towards a joint security force," Ghneimat said on Saturday. They also "blew up the building in which they were hiding, and which they had booby-trapped earlier", she added. Three members of the security forces were killed in the shootout with the gunmen who were holed up in an apartment in a four-storey residential bloc in Salt, she said in a statement. A fourth who was critically wounded died of his injuries on Sunday, she added. The bodies of three "terrorists" as well as automatic weapons were found under the rubble of the building, and a total of five militants were arrested during the operation, Ghneimat said. Bomb blasts targeting security forces are rare in Jordan, although the small desert kingdom bordering Syria and Iraq has had to struggle with a rise in Muslim fundamentalism in recent years. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for Friday's bomb blast in Al-Fuhais, a mostly Christian town, and the identities of the suspects were not known. "A clean-up operation is still under way," Ghneimat said, adding that units of the civil defence were at the scene to assess the damage at the building and sift through the rubble. Ghneimat urged civilians to stay away, warning that "it could totally collapse at any minute". An excavator was later seen demolishing the structure.
