In the exercise, that will last about fifteen days, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Canada, Egypt, United Arab Emirates, France, Jordan, United Kingdom, Iraq, Italy, Lebanon, Czech Republic, Pakistan, Poland, Qatar, United States, Turkey and Yemen will take part. In preparation for Eager Lion, over the last few days the Jordan National Army Commander in Chief – General Mishal Mohammed Zabin – met with the military leaders of United States, France and Turkey, and with NATO Deputy Secretary-general Alexander Vershbow.
 

The news of the new war games in Middle East was published the day before Anders Fogh Rasmussen – Atlantic Alliance secretary-general – is visiting Washington. He will meet President Barack Obama, Secretary of State John Kerry, and National Security Officer Tom Donilon. First of all, the focus of the meeting will be the Syrian conflict; the Pentagon is supposedly analyzing the possibility of imposing a No Fly Zone in the skies over Syria, while some NATO countries are proposing an armed intervention similar to the one carried out against Libya two years ago. The armed forces of the countries bordering Syria are already on alert, i.e., Jordan, Lebanon, Israel and Turkey. In the last few days, Turkey received four “Patriot” missile batteries from NATO, and another two directly from the USA.
 

United States Special Forces are providing for technical-logistic and intelligence assistance to Jordan’s army. A few months ago, about 200 US Army troops were transferred to Jordan; they are part of the First Armored Division – an armoured division already stationed in Germany and then re-deployed to Fort Bliss, Texas. A dispatch of special units for anti-aircraft war would follow the task-force. Furthermore, Amman requested that the “allied countries” to fortify the “defensive” equipment on the Syrian frontier, supplying additional  “Patriot” missile batteries. Meanwhile – according to General Mishal Mohammed Zabin – “to prevent traffic and infiltration into the country”, cameras, radars and sophisticated alarm systems have been installed. Jordan Air-Force fighter-interceptors are taking part to the “surveillance” actions at the Syrian border. One of those (a British-made battle-trainer T-67 “Firefly”) crashed on last May 15, due to not further specified “technical issues”; this caused the death of two crew members. The aircraft had taken off from “King Hussein Air College” base (nearly Mafraq, a small border town), where more than 3.000 soldiers and national police, and 200 troops of the US FirstArmored Division are quartered. According to Associated Press, it is in that installation that the US military “advisers” are supposedly secretly training the rebel groups fighting against Bashar Assad regime.