World>Terrorism & Security
posted August 23, 2005 at 12:00 p.m.

Is Jordan Al Qaeda's next 'front'?

Zarqawi's Al Qaeda in Iraq group claims Friday's rocket attack on US ships.

By Matthew Clark | csmonitor.com

Jordanian authorities announced Monday that they had arrested a "prime suspect" in the rocket attack on two US warships in the Jordanian port of Aqaba, reports The New York Times.

Friday's attack missed the two US vessels moored in Aqaba for training exercises, but killed one Jordanian soldier and severely wounded another. It was the most serious attempt to harm Western interests in Jordan since US diplomat Lawrence Foley was murdered in the capital of Amman in 2002.

Hours after Jordan announced the suspect's arrest, Al Qaeda in Iraq – headed by now-infamous Jordanian militant, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi – claimed responsibility for the attack by posting a statement on the Internet.

"Your brothers in the Al Qaeda Organization in Iraq have been planning the Aqaba raid for a while," said the statement. "The rockets were fired at their targets -- a group of ships belonging to the crusader American forces ...."

"We would like to tell you that we delayed claiming this attack so that our brothers could complete their withdrawal ... and they returned safely to their base."

Zarqawi's group has vowed to punish Jordan's rulers for "aiding the treacherous enemy America."


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Jordan identified the suspect as Mohammad Abdullah Hassan al-Sihly, a Syrian citizen who lived in Amman, reports CNN.

The government statement said al-Sihly entered Jordan in December 2004 after being wounded in Iraq....

His sons, Abdullah and Abdulrahman, and Mohammed Hameed Hassan al-Iraqi – also known as Abu Mukhtar – entered Jordan in early August, smuggling seven Katyusha rockets into the country.

Three were fired in Friday's attack on the amphibious assault ship USS Kearsarge and the amphibious transport USS Ashland, authorities said.

The group rented a warehouse in an industrial district of Aqaba, Jordan's Red Sea port, and set a timer to launch the rockets Friday morning. Al-Sihly's sons and Abu Mukhtar returned to Iraq after setting the rockets to fire, Jordan's government said.

The group was in "direct contact" with leaders in Iraq, who were kept informed on their progress, the government said.

"The government report sketched the outlines of a carefully planned attack that relied on precise intelligence, weapons training, and a smuggling run across the border from Iraq, and that hinted at the presence of at least some logistical help within Jordan," the Times reports.

Even before the rocket attack on Friday, alarm bells had been ringing in the halls of Jordan's security establishment over the possibility that Iraqi insurgents were operating within Jordan. "It was clear, Jordan was in the eye of the storm," said Samir Habashneh, who until April was Jordan's interior minister. "The ground was fertile for an attack."

The Times points out that "Jordan has thwarted several planned attacks in recent years, and it has blamed Zarqawi's organization for several."

Reuters cites security experts as saying that the Aqaba attack "may be a signal [Zarqawi] has opened a new front against Washington's closest Arab ally (Jordan)."

"Zarqawi appreciates more than ever that by hitting the US military in Jordan he would score not just a symbolic victory but maybe disrupt a hitherto safe supply route for the US army into bases in the western desert (of Iraq)," said one intelligence expert and official who requested anonymity.

Jordan denies providing logistical backing to Washington's military campaign though the US military have said in briefings it has used the country as a main supply route.

The Saudi English-language daily Arab News posits the following in an editorial about Jordan as a possible new front for Al Qaeda:

For the American military, this latest outrage demonstrates the complexity and ever-changing nature of the task they have set themselves in eradicating terror in Iraq. They must now plan for the possibility that any of their naval ships, tied up in any port in the region, could come under attack from the shore. This could produce a policy of replenishment at sea with US vessels hardly ever docking. If that turns out to be the case, it will be another small but nevertheless telling victory for the terrorists and will once again put the US on the back foot in a fight, the difficulty of which it underestimated from the beginning.