More than 12,000 special forces troops from 19 countries, including many who saw combat last year in Libya, will be swarming all over Jordan for the next two weeks in the largest war games ever held in the Middle East, while their leaders adamantly deny it is a prelude to war in Syria.

The commandoes — from the United States, Britain, France, Italy, Spain, Saudi Arabia Lebanon, Pakistan, Qatar, Australia and several other Arab countries that refuse to be identified — are practising guerrilla tactics, staging assaults on a fictitiously troubled nation, conducting counterterrorism operations and learning how to deal with refugees.

While the exercises will reportedly be confined to southern Jordan in a bid to allay Syrian fears, they send a not-so-subtle warning to Syria and Iran over the possibility for international intervention in the Middle East.

As a United Nations-brokered peace plan continues to unravel in Syria, Syrian newspapers were having conniptions last week over the fact the joint military manoeuvres are code-named Exercise Eager Lion 12 — the surname of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad also means “lion.”

Jordanian officials insist the exercises are “not connected to any real world event” and are unrelated to the violence that has torn Syria apart, caused the deaths of at least 9,000 people and forced more than 11,000 refugees into Jordan.

“Training events such as Eager Lion provide our forces with an opportunity to practise their language skills, immerse themselves in the culture, learn different tactics, techniques and procedures,” Major General Ken Tovov of the U.S. Special Operations Forces said Tuesday.

The U.S. Central Command in Tampa, Fla., which is responsible for the Middle East, called Eager Lion “part of a long history of multilateral military exercises in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.”

“The exercise scenarios are designed to portray realistic, modern-day security challenges,” U.S officials noted. “The scenarios are designed years in advance to fulfill collaborative training goals.”

Nevertheless, many in the Middle East see the military manoeuvres as just another step in the pressure Western and Arab states are applying to Syria.

As Syria’s revolt entered its 15th month Tuesday, its neighbours continue to warn of the dangers of an all-out civil war.

“The violence is still continuing, the bloodshed is still continuing,” Prince Saud Al Faisal, Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister, said Monday after a special meeting of the Gulf Cooperation Council in Riyadh to discuss Syria.

“Nothing has been accomplished except the violence has lessened … nobody is satisfied.”

He said the UN peace plan, cobbled together by former UN secretary general Kofi Annan to put 300 UN monitors in Syria to police a ceasefire, is rapidly losing credibility.

Twenty-two people were killed in Syria Tuesday, according to the opposition Local Coordination Committee of Syria, who said government troops opened fire with live ammunition on a student demonstration in Aleppo.

The state-run Arab News Agency said terrorists killed two police officers in Damascus and Daraa.

Even Terje Roed-Larsen, the UN’s special envoy to the Middle East, warned of pending disaster last week, when he said arms are continuing to flood into Syria from Lebanon.

“What we see across the region is a dance of death at the brink of the abyss of war,” he said, warning Syria could easily slide into the civil war that traumatized Lebanon in 1975-90.

Another indication of the tensions generated by Syria’s descent into chaos came early this month when Israel’s military called up six reserve battalions to serve on the borders of Egypt and Syria. They also obtained parliamentary permission to summon another 16 other reserve battalions if necessary.

Israeli military officials are closely tracking events in Syria. They fear the sudden collapse of Mr. Assad’s regime could result in groups affiliated with al-Qaeda trying to seize control of the Golan Heights.

There are fears prolonged conflict in Syria could drag the Middle East into a new round of terrorism and ethnic and religious strife.

Fighting spilled over into Tripoli, Lebanon, this week, where eight people have died in three days of sectarian gunfights between groups supporting different factions in Syria.

The threat of a wider terrorist campaign surfaced in Damascus last week, when two car bombs exploded outside a police intelligence office, killing 55 people and wounding 300 more.

“The car bombs drove home the point that the insurgency is getting more lethal and capable all the time,” said Joshua Landis, a Syrian expert at the University of Oklahoma.

“Damascus must worry about becoming more like Baghdad and Kabul.” (© 2012 National Post, a division of Postmedia Network Inc. 05/16/12)