AMMAN: Four members of the Jordanian security forces and three “terrorists” have been killed during a raid on a militant hideout after an officer died in a bomb blast near the capital, the government said yesterday, reports AFP.

Five suspects were also arrested during Saturday’s raid in connection with the home-made bomb that exploded under a patrol car at a music festival.

A joint unit of special forces, police and army troops raided a house in the town of Salt northwest of Amman in search of a suspected “terrorist cell”, government spokeswoman Jumana Ghneimat said.

She said the militants were sought in connection with Friday night’s bombing that killed a police sergeant and wounded six others in the town of Al-Fuhais west of Amman.

“The suspects refused to surrender and opened heavy fire toward a joint security force,” Ghneimat said on Saturday. They also “blew up the building in which they were hiding, and which they had booby-trapped earlier”, she added.