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Jordan Foils Al Qaeda Plot to Attack US, Israeli Embasses

(Christian Science Monitor) - Jordan has arrested 11 men said to have Al Qaeda ties who were planning to attack a variety of U.S. and Israeli targets. Those arrested are Arab veterans of the Afghan conflict, working in small, loosely coordinated groups to promote a strict version of Islam through violent action. The men are led by Emir Wail al Shalabi, a Palestinian-Jordanian veteran of Afghanistan who fled the Taliban fortress of Tora Bora with 10 followers during America's bombing. Informed sources said four of the men were planning attacks on the American and Israeli Embassies, and on leisure centers in Jordan frequented by Americans. Jordan was the only Arab state to send peacekeepers to Kabul, and it conducts frequent military exercises with the U.S. A third of its $450 million U.S. aid budget goes to military aid. The rise in militant Islam alarms the Jordanian leadership. Friday prayers in some mosques are accompanied with celebrations for the martyrs of the previous week's suicide bombings on Israelis, and an anti-American mood is partially fostered by dozens of Arab veterans of Afghanistan who have returned home to Jordan since Sept. 11. Tanks have taken up positions outside the U.S. Embassy in the normally relaxed capital, and American Peace Corps volunteers stationed in the country's hinterland have been cautioned against visiting Amman. Since Sept. 11, the authorities have confiscated thousands of books of jihadi literature from publishing houses in Amman and made a spate of arrests. A death sentence was passed on Jordanian-American Raed Hijazi for conspiring in 1999 to act against American and Israeli tourists on the eve of the millennium celebrations. The authorities said the plot was funded by Al Qaeda, and linked it to alleged attempts to assassinate King Abdullah while on his summer holiday, and to attack the tourist facilities at the site of Jesus' baptism near the Jordan River.
2002-07-02 00:00:00
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