The man turned out to have a wooden belt connected to rusty batteries, the sources added.
The attacker told police that he “only wanted to intimidate those who were inside the building.”
According to IAF member Aziz Eswed, a man wearing a cloak arrived at the building in Amman’s Abdali neighborhood during Dhuhr prayers and asked to meet with the IAF Secretary General Hamzeh Mansour. “The man said that he was coming from the desert and was annoyed by the party’s attitudes, particularly their activities against the king,” Eswed said.
“Mansour tried to calm him and told him that we all love the king and only want reforms.”
Party officials called the police who came, evacuated the building and arrested the man, Eswed said.
The IAF and its mother group, the Muslim Brotherhood movement, have been at loggerheads with the government of Prime Minister Marouf Bakhit for the past few weeks after conservatives refused to join the National Dialogue Committee he had set up to discuss political reforms. Conservatives and other opposition parties insisted that the king and not the prime minister be the reference point for any reforms.
Some opposition figures have said that any reforms should include curtailing the powers of the king and turning the country into a constitutional monarchy, a move that was rejected by Bakhit and pro-regime politicians. The authorities recently provided Mansour heavy security after he received threats.
The Brotherhood’s Consultative Council last week accused the government of mobilizing loyalists and policemen who on March 25 attacked a rally attended by pro-democracy protesters, killing one man and wounding more than 120.
