Three killed in Israel border attack

Jordanian border authorities shot dead three armed men who were trying to sneak through the frontier into Israel today and detained a fourth man.

Police were investigating the early morning incident in Waqas, a small village near the Jordan River 40 miles north of the Jordanian capital.

Border patrols detected movement in the area and warned the four men to surrender, but they opened fire at police who then shot at them, killing three, government spokeswoman Asma Khader said.

The fourth man surrendered and was detained.

Jordan and Israel established diplomatic relations in 1994. Incidents of cross-border violence are rare.

In November, Israeli officials said a gunman trying to infiltrate a border crossing from southern Jordan fired on a crowd of tourists, wounding five tourists from Ecuador who were on the Israeli side of the border near the Red Sea resort town of Eilat. The attacker was killed.