MA’AN, jordan — Local authorities quickly stripped away public signs of support for the Islamic State group in this desert town. Black flags have been removed from rooftops. Graffiti proclaiming the extremists’ imminent victory have been whitewashed. But supporters of the Middle East’s most radical extremist group are only lying low after their surprise show of strength in protests last summer.
Despite government efforts, support for the Islamic State group is growing in Ma’an and elsewhere in Jordan, one of the West’s key allies in the region, say Islamic State activists, members of rival groups and experts on political Islam.
One of the leading Islamic State group activists in Ma’an said he and others are working to build their base.
“In homes, at work, in mosques, in the streets, we reach out to people to call them to the real Islam,” said Abu Abdullah, 40, a blacksmith.
Like other Islamic State group supporters interviewed by The Associated Press, he spoke on condition he be identified by his nickname for fear of troubles with authorities.
Militants like Abu Abdullah talk confidently of eventually having enough numbers to make the takeover of Jordan inevitable. That might be overconfidence. Hard-core supporters of the Islamic State’s self-proclaimed “caliphate” likely number in the thousands in a nation of 6.5 million. The government says the threat is overblown.
Extremists do have momentum, attracting followers with promises of radical change and an ostensibly more just society at a time when many Jordanians can’t find jobs, struggle with rising prices or feel abandoned by the pro-Western ruling elite.
The war in Syria gives them a cause and battlefield experience. Up to 2,000 Jordanians are fighting in rebel ranks in Syria and Iraq, most of them with extremist factions. Several hundred have been killed, said Hassan Abu Haniyeh, an expert on Islamic movements, and Marwan Shehadeh, a scholar who was once part of the ultraconservative Salafi movement.
Over the summer, jihadi Salafi marches were held in Ma’an, Zarqa and several other cities. Given the poverty and anger at perceived government neglect, such protests could erupt again and spread, warned Ma’an’s mayor, Majed al-Sharari.
“My expectation is that because of this pressure, there will be a huge explosion in Jordan,” he said. “I don’t expect 2015 to pass peacefully. The signs are there.”
Jordan’s King Abdullah II called the fight against the Islamic State group and extremists “a third world war by other means.”
