Jordanian accusations against Hamas persist, as does widespread speculation as to why now, and why Hamas, reports Sana Abdallah in Amman The Jordanian government, in an effort to verify its recent accusations, paraded three men on state-owned television Thursday as they "confessed" to storing smuggled arms for Hamas in the kingdom and plotting to hit Jordanian targets. The showing and detailed "confessions" only stirred suspicions and opened the door wider for speculation. The three men, Jordanians of Palestinian origin and among 20 who were arrested, claimed they were recruited by a Syria-based Hamas leader to smuggle weapons, store them and kill Jordanian intelligence personnel. They gave a lengthy account of their movements as Jordan TV showed footage of seized weapons, including hand grenades, missiles that authorities claimed were Iranian-made Katyushas, rocket launchers and machine guns unearthed in an olive grove. One of them, who said he was a mosque imam, spoke about receiving weapons training in Syria. He said one of the other suspects who recruited him asked him to monitor foreign tourists in Aqaba and a Jordanian Christian businessman, identified as Sami Khoury, as targets. The day after the aired "confessions," Sami Khoury appeared on the Qatar-based Al-Jazeera Channel saying he was surprised his name was used in the affair and insisted he was a pan-Arab nationalist who enjoyed good relations with Hamas, Jordan's Muslim Brotherhood and was one of the founders of Jordan's Anti-Zionist Committee. Hamas experts say the suspects' testimonies and the government's accusations are dubious since the Palestinian Islamic Movement has no record of taking its military struggle outside Palestine and Israel. They say it was unlikely to start now, especially with Jordan, the only gateway from the West Bank, and as its Palestinian government faces mounting pressure and severe sanctions from the rest of the world. Jordanian sceptics -- and there are many -- say the official government story, which also implicates Syria and Iran, is too convenient and carries many political implications. Hours before the suspects' televised "confessions," government spokesman Nasser Judeh said investigations revealed "attempts to bring recruits from the Palestinian territories and send them to Syria and Iran to receive military, security and intelligence training." Judeh made his comments as a Palestinian security delegation, which excluded anyone from the Hamas government, ended a visit to Amman where their Jordanian counterparts briefed them on the investigation. Perhaps realising that implicating Syria and Iran -- respectively under heavy pressure from the West over Iran's nuclear programme and Syria's alleged role in former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Al-Hariri's assassination -- adds to the "convenience" of Jordan's accusations, officials later said Amman was not accusing Damascus and Tehran of anything. They said these governments might not be aware of the alleged plot. The Hamas government, having categorically denied involvement, offered an olive branch to Jordan by saying it was ready to send Foreign Minister Mahmoud Zahar to Amman to settle the crisis. Jordan snubbed the offer, insisting it will not hold political talks with the Hamas government until it dispatches a security team to help investigate the alleged plot. Judeh said Saturday the government "expects to receive a Palestinian government security delegation to examine and discuss the issue and be capable of uncovering more evidence, as well as hidden arms that pose a threat to national security." The loaded statement, which is an effective "guilty" verdict on Hamas, again took the Palestinian government by surprise. Last month Jordan called off a planned visit by Zahar as it announced the seizure of the weapons. Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh said in Gaza that settling the crisis could only happen through political dialogue. Hamas statements from Gaza that the Jordanians had fabricated the entire case to serve an American agenda -- a view shared by its powerful Muslim Brotherhood allies in Jordan -- only infuriated Amman further. Its view is that if Hamas has nothing to do with the alleged plot, it should prove it, instead of simply issuing denials and counter-accusations of Jordanian fabrication. Implicating Hamas' exiled leadership in Damascus -- presumably its political bureau chief Khalid Meshal, a Jordanian citizen, although his name has not yet been mentioned -- is also telling. Meshal was deported from Jordan, along with three others, in 1999 when authorities cracked down on the movement, declaring it illegal in the kingdom. If the exiled Hamas branch is involved, there is an obvious rift and lack of coordination within the organisation that will make the Palestinian government's attempts to end its isolation, and the repercussions on the Palestinians as a whole, more difficult. On the other hand, if Hamas is not involved, the Jordanian government has gone to extreme lengths to fabricate the story for its own political reasons, or some other foreign party recruited the suspects in the name of Hamas to serve their own political agendas.
