AMMAN: A car bomb outside a Syrian refugee camp in Jordan killed six soldiers on Tuesday in a remote desert area where hundreds have been held for screening for suspected links to Daesh militants.

There was no immediate claim for the bombing but Jordan is a leading member of the US-led coalition fighting Daesh in neighbouring Syria and Iraq, and has been the target of jihadist attacks in the past.

Fourteen soldiers were also wounded in the attack, a security official told AFP, adding that it was a “preliminary toll” and the number of dead might rise.

The army said the bomb struck at 5:30 am (0230 GMT) in Rukban, on the Syrian border in the far northeast of the kingdom.

It said it destroyed several “enemy” vehicles at the border, but would give no further details until later in the day.

Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh condemned the “cowardly attack.”

“Terrorists strike again this time against our border guard,” he tweeted on his official account. “This evil will be defeated.”

On June 6, a gunman killed five Jordanian intelligence officers in a Palestinian refugee camp north of the capital.

A suspect was later arrested but details of the attack have been kept under a gag order while the investigation continues.

Tens of thousands of Syrian refugees have sought shelter at two remote desert camps in the northeast - one at Rukban and another at Handalat further west.

A flare-up in the five-year civil war in Syria sparked a new influx of refugees in the area last month, with nearly 5,500 arriving at Rukban within days in early May.

Daesh fears

Jordanian authorities kept hundreds of refugees camped in no-man’s land outside Rukban waiting for screening, out of fear that they are involved with Daesh which controls swathes of eastern Syria and neighbouring Iraq.

The kingdom’s refusal to allow the refugees to move further inside Jordanian territory has drawn criticism from the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.

Jordan says it is hosting nearly 1.4 million Syrian refugees, of whom 630,000 are registered with the United Nations.

The huge refugee presence has placed a massive strain on Jordan’s economy and resources, and raised security concerns in a country which has already experienced several jihadist attacks.