AMMAN: An oil tanker exploded in an accident on the Iraqi-Jordanian border on Thursday, killing two people, injuring nine others and setting 19 other trucks ablaze, security officials said.
"A tanker truck that unloaded the oil it was carrying from Iraq in the special zone located in ‘no-man’s land’ on the border between Iraq and Jordan caught fire due to an explosion, causing a fire that affected 19 other trucks," a Jordanian security official told AFP.
Police spokesman Mohammed Khatib later said two people were killed, nine injured and one person was still missing after the blaze was put out.
Investigators believe the cause of the blast was an "accident," ruling out any criminal motive behind the incident, according to the security official.
The official said a preliminary probe showed the fire was "accidental due to an error during the unloading of the oil."
"The driver of the tanker truck, an Iraqi, is in the hands of the police and is in a state of shock," the official said.
In 2008, Jordanian authorities at the border discovered explosives hidden in a tanker driven by a Saudi, Fahed Fheidi, which were presumably meant to detonate inside Jordan.
Fheidi, a member of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, was later sentenced to death.
Last December, Jordan busted a network of people planning attacks using oil tankers and operations targeting an Iraqi police training centre in Jordan.
Jordan, which consumes around 100,000 barrels per day of oil, imports around 10,000 bpd from Iraq and hopes to see this rise to 30,000 bpd.
