Amman (ANTARA News/Reuters) - Khaled Meshaal, the leader of Islamist group Hamas which rules the Gaza Strip, has been allowed into Jordan to visit his sick mother more than a decade after he was deported from the country, officials said on Thursday.

It was Meshaal`s second visit to Jordan since a crackdown in 1999, when the Amman offices of the Palestinian group were closed and its top leaders were expelled for conducting illegal activities. He has set up home in Damascus since 2001.

Meshal was permitted to visit his dying father in Amman briefly in 2009. His father`s funeral turned into a show of support for the radical Palestinian group.

Hamas has many supporters in Palestinian camps in Jordan, which hosts the largest number of refugees outside the West Bank and Gaza. (*)

Editor: Kunto Wibisono
Copyright © ANTARA 2011