Syria fighter pilot seeks asylum in Jordan

A Syrian fighter pilot flew his plane to Jordan and requested political asylum on Thursday, raising concerns that the turmoil in Syria could spill over into the Hashemite kingdom.

Samih Maaytah, Jordan’s information minister, told the Financial Times the MiG-21 aircraft landed in Jordan on Thursday morning. Jordanian state media later said that the pilot’s request for political asylum had been granted.

Syrian state media said that communications were lost with a plane flown by Colonel Hassan Hamadeh at 10.34am during a training flight near the Jordanian border. A Defence Ministry statement, quoted by Reuters, later described Col Hamadeh as a “traitor” and said it was in contact with Jordanian authorities to retrieve the aircraft.

“The pilot is considered a deserter from service and a traitor to his country and his military honour. Contacts are under way with the Jordanian side to make arrangements to return the plane,” a statement by the ministry said.

Violence continued in Syria on Thursday, with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) aid workers forced to suspend an attempt to evacuate injured people and civilians from the battle-torn central city of Homs due to shooting. The ICRC said on Wednesday that both sides had agreed to a pause in fighting to facilitate the humanitarian effort.

Thousands of personnel are reported to have defected from the Syrian army, but this is the first time an aircraft has been taken abroad. The Syrian regime has not yet used fighter jets in its military campaigns against opposition areas however, and analysts say it is not clear what the impact of the defection will be.

“It is not necessarily the case that others will follow and that it will have a domino effect on the higher level ranks of the military,” said Emile Hokayem of the International Institute for Strategic Studies. “The real story is about Jordan here and how difficult it is going to be to manage its relations with Syria.”

Although it was the first Arab state to call for Bashar al-Assad to resign as Syrian president, Jordan views the escalating turmoil in Syria as a critical threat to the kingdom’s prized political stability, and has long been determined to avoid any move that would drag the country into the Syrian conflict.

That position will now be tested, as Jordanian policy makers weigh their response to the Syrian defection: on the one hand, Amman will be deeply reluctant to antagonise the regime in Damascus; but Jordan will also want to avoid upsetting countries such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar, which support the Syrian rebels but which also provide critical financial support for Jordan.

According to diplomats and officials in Amman, the Jordanian regime is worried in particular about the emergence of a hardline Islamist government in Damascus should the current leadership fall. The fear is that this would encourage Jordan’s own Islamist political party, the main opposition force, to take a more aggressive stance on political reform – possibly scuppering Jordan’s stated plan for a slow, incremental move towards greater political freedom.

Jordanian officials have also voiced concern that parts of Syria are becoming a hotbed of Jihadist activity, and may end up posing an even worse security challenge to the country than Iraq after the US invasion.