AMMAN — Jordan’s Director of General Intelligence Directorate, Major General Ahmed Hachki, was shot dead outside his home in Amman’s upscale Rabieh district on Thursday morning, in what Jordanian authorities called a precision-targeted assassination carried out with military-grade planning. A second officer traveling in the same vehicle sustained serious wounds and was rushed to King Hussein Medical Center, where doctors described his condition as stable but critical. No group immediately claimed responsibility for the killing, which sent shockwaves through a region already on edge over widening Iranian influence operations and the spillover from the Gaza war.
Security camera footage obtained by regional media showed two assailants on a black motorcycle approaching Hachki’s armored convoy at approximately 7:15 a.m. local time. The attackers opened fire with suppressed weapons before speeding away toward the Iraqi border — a route that suggested advance knowledge of escape corridors. Jordan’s Public Security Directorate said in a statement that an intensive manhunt was underway and appealed to citizens for information, while forensic teams remained at the scene well into the afternoon.
Prime Minister Bisher Khasawneh convened an emergency cabinet session and addressed the nation in a brief televised statement, calling the killing a “cowardly terrorist act targeting the heart of our state’s security apparatus.” He said all state resources had been directed toward identifying and apprehending the perpetrators and warned that those responsible would face “the full weight of Jordanian law.” King Abdullah II, who had been on an official visit to Washington, cut short his trip and returned to Amman to chair an emergency meeting of the National Security Council. The royal palace issued a statement expressing “deep grief and unwavering resolve” and ordering a full investigation under the direct supervision of the palace.
The Central Intelligence Agency and Israel’s Mossad were immediately notified following the attack, according to three regional intelligence officials who spoke on condition of anonymity. The State Department issued a brief statement saying the United States was “deeply concerned by this act of terrorism” and had offered full cooperation to Jordanian investigators. US officials declined to comment on whether any intelligence about the attack had been shared with Amman in advance.
The attack has deepened concerns in Western intelligence circles about Iran’s expanding shadow operations across the Levant. Jordan has become an increasingly sensitive intelligence fault line since the Gaza war began — Amman has repeatedly warned Tehran and its proxy networks that any attempt to destabilize the kingdom would be met with an overwhelming response. Hachki had served as director of general intelligence since 2022 and was credited with restructuring Jordan’s counterterrorism apparatus following a series of domestic threats from Sunni extremist cells linked to the Islamic State. He had been a key interlocutor for the CIA, MI6, and Mossad in coordinating cross-border intelligence operations targeting ISIS remnants and Iranian-linked militias operating near the Syrian and Iraqi frontiers.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry issued a formal statement denying any involvement and calling the assassination “a desperate act by enemy intelligence services attempting to fabricate pretexts for escalation.” The statement accused “Zionist and takfiri elements” of orchestrating the killing to damage Iran’s regional standing and called on the Jordanian government to conduct an independent investigation rather than “succumbing to smear campaigns.” The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps did not issue any public comment on the attack. Senior IRGC commanders have in past incidents used silence as a deliberate signal — neither confirming nor denying involvement until the operational context is deemed appropriate for disclosure.
Ninety minutes after the killing, the Islamic State’s Amaq news agency released a brief statement claiming responsibility and identifying the attackers as two of the group’s “soldiers of the caliphate.” The statement included no operational details and provided no immediately verifiable evidence of the group’s involvement. Regional security analysts called the timing and framing of the claim suspicious, noting that IS typically releases claims within minutes of an attack rather than waiting more than an hour. “The claim is either opportunistic or the group had advance knowledge and was waiting to confirm it could walk away clean,” said a former Jordanian military intelligence officer who tracks IS activity in the region.
Jordanian officials said they were pursuing two parallel investigative tracks. The first focuses on an Iranian-linked operational network — whether directly run by the IRGC’s Quds Force or through Lebanese Hezbollah’s expanded presence along Jordan’s northern border with Syria. The second track examines the possibility of a domestic Sunni extremist cell acting with external support but without direct Iranian orchestration. Officials cautioned that both tracks had significant evidentiary gaps and warned against premature conclusions.
The assassination comes at a particularly volatile moment for Jordan, which has been navigating competing pressures from Israel, Iran, and Western partners since the Gaza war erupted. Amman has maintained quiet back-channel communications with Tehran as part of a managed de-escalation strategy, and senior Jordanian officials fear the killing could destabilize that delicate balance. King Abdullah, in his address upon returning to Amman, struck a notably restrained tone — saying Jordan would “respond with wisdom and precision, not panic or revenge” — an indication that the palace is intent on controlling the narrative and avoiding escalation.
Oil prices rose sharply on the news, with Brent crude climbing 1.4% to touch $121.40 per barrel before settling back to $120.85. The Jordanian dinar was steady, but currency traders noted elevated volatility in the forward market as investors priced in elevated geopolitical risk. Amman’s stock exchange fell 1.8% in early trading before recovering half its losses by midday.
The assassination also complicates ongoing regional negotiations over the future of US military presence in Jordan, where approximately 3,000 US personnel are stationed across several bases in conjunction with counter-ISIS operations. Jordanian officials have faced increasing domestic pressure to review the US footprint, and any perception that American intelligence partnerships failed to prevent the killing could sharpen that debate.