US passes bill to help Jordan in fight against ISIS


The United States House of Representatives passed a bill on Tuesday to enable the U.S. to transfer weaponry to Jordan in the fight against the self-proclaimed Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham.The legislation not only opens doors for arm transfers from the U.S. to Jordan in the same manner as to other North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) countries, but also make way for further financial assistance to a military cooperation with Jordan.The legislation author, Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen called the war against ISIS 'a scourge of terror' and urged to Congress to do its utmost.According to the UN, the Middle East country Jordan hosts about 630,000 Syrian refugees who were displaced by the war.Jordan, alongside Turkey, Lebanon, Egypt and Iraq have had to deal with a large influx of Syrian refugees. For this matter, since January 2015 the U.S. government has provided humanitarian aid worth of $467 million to Jordan.In February, an agreement to increase U.S. assistance to Jordan annually through 2017- from 660 million dollars to 1 billion dollars- was signed.