AMMAN, Nov 12: As an armed standoff between Islamists and Jordanian security forces kept the southern town of Maan under curfew for a third straight day Tuesday, Jordanian opposition parties, including Islamists, offered to mediate to seek a peaceful solution.

Interior Minister Kaftan Majali meanwhile said 50 people, including eight foreigners, have been arrested since the operation started as the security forces pursued their search Tuesday for fundmentalist militants.

“Fifty people, including eight foreigners, have been detained since the operation to arrest an armed gang was launched on Sunday,” Majali told the official Petra news agency.

“Those arrested are either members of the gang, those who resisted or people in whose homes the security forces found weapons,” Majali said.

A rocket launcher and several rocket-propelled grenades were among the weapons seized, he added, including other unspecified weapons which had been hidden in the home of key suspect Mohammad al-Shalabi, known as Abu Sayyaf.

Earlier Majali told AFP that house-to-house searches were continuing in Maan, 215 kilometers (135 miles) south of Amman, with troops operating inside Al-Tour and Al-Wad districts to capture five key armed suspects.

“Every house is being searched by the security forces for the outlaws,” Majali told AFP, adding that the operation will continue until around 70 “armed outlaws” are in custody.

His remarks came as Jordan’s opposition parties set up a committee chaired by the supreme leader of the Islamic Action Front (IAF), Abdel Latif Arabiyat, to chart out a course for dialogue with the authorities.

“The committee has offered its good offices to the prime minister to solve the Maan crisis,” Arabiyat told AFP.

Monday night’s meeting reaffirmed the attachement of the opposition parties to Jordan’s “sovereignty and the law, and underscored that Jordan’s security and stability is the priority,” he said.

The committee also decided to send a message to Jordan’s King Abdullah II informing him that “it is placing itself at the service of the authorities to solve this crisis,” he added.

Jordanian officials welcomed the mediation offer but insisted they remained determined to secure the arrest of those holed up in Maan.—AFP