4 Jordanian police killed in clash with gunmen during raid

Four policemen were killed Tuesday in an exchange of fire with wanted men in a central Jordanian province where assailants had killed 10 people in a series of ambushes earlier this week, state media said.

Government spokesman Mohammed Momani told reporters Tuesday night that one fugitive was killed and one wounded.

“The operation will continue and will not stop until we uproot terrorism from our country,” Momani said in quotes published by the state-run Petra news agency.

State media said police officers came under fire during a raid of a suspected hideout of fugitives. Petra said the cell targeted Tuesday was not connected to those involved in Sunday’s attacks in Karak.

Earlier Tuesday, the extremist group Islamic State claimed responsibility for Sunday’s shootings which killed nine Jordanians and a tourist from Canada.

Sunday’s shootings were the bloodiest in Jordan in recent memory and raised new concerns about the rise of Islamic militancy in the pro-Western kingdom.

Jordan plays a key role in the U.S.-led military campaign against IS, which seized large areas in neighboring Iraq and Syria in 2014 and proclaimed a “caliphate” there.

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