Jordanian officer shoots dead two Americans, one South African at security training site

A Jordanian officer shot dead two U.S. government security contractors, a South African trainer and a Jordanian translator at a U.S. funded police training facility near Amman on Monday before being killed in a shootout, authorities said. President Obama said he was treating the attack at the King Abdullah Training Center, in which four Jordanians and one Lebanese citizen were wounded, very seriously and a full investigation was underway. The gunman was a police captain, a senior Jordanian official told Reuters. There was no immediate word on the attacker's background or motive. But Jordan is a staunch U.S. ally in the Washington-led campaign against Islamic State militants who hold large areas of neighboring Syria and Iraq, a position Jordanian officials say leaves the kingdom vulnerable to jihadist attacks.