An attack aimed at US warships in Aqaba sends a message to Jordan's pro-US government, reports Sana Abdallah in Amman A Katyusha rocket attack from Jordan's Red Sea port city of Aqaba on 19 August, apparently targeting but missing two docked United States Navy destroyers, sent shockwaves through the kingdom that has prided itself on its reputable security measures and impressive record in thwarting terrorism. The attack killed one Jordanian soldier and injured another when one mortar fell on a Jordanian military depot. Another rocket landed near a military hospital in the southern city and a third slammed into the nearby Israeli city of Eilat, though no one was hurt. Authorities said the mortars were fired from an industrial zone warehouse that had been leased to a group of four Egyptians and Iraqis a few days prior to the attack. They arrested two Egyptians and an Iraqi as immediate suspects, but rounded up dozens of other Arab workers, including Jordanians and Syrians, for questioning after raiding two working class neighbourhoods in the port city. On Monday, the Jordanian authorities arrested their main suspect, a Syrian national Mohamed Hassan Abdullah Al-Sehli, who travelled to Jordan on a fake Iraqi passport. Three other suspects, including two of Al-Sehli's sons, are at large. Jordan the home country of Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, has broken a number of Al-Qaeda-linked networks suspected of plotting against US and other Western targets. Al-Zarqawi who has a $25 million bounty on his head, claimed responsibility for the attack in Aqaba. He issued a statement saying that his fighters carried out the attack and that they returned "safely to base". The so-called Abdullah Al-Azzam Brigades of Al-Qaeda Organisation in the Levant and Egypt, which claimed responsibility for the nearby Sharm El-Sheikh blasts that killed or injured over 100 civilians last month, said on an Islamic website that it had carried out the Aqaba attacks. The statement, which could not be authenticated, vowed the attack, the first of its kind in the country, was "our debut operation in Jordan", saying that a group of its fighters targeted US vessels with three Katyusha rockets. It warned the Americans, who quickly sailed their two destroyers out of the Aqaba Gulf after the Katyusha attack, to expect even more stinging attacks. The group also demanded the release of "our jailed brothers" and threatened the "Jordanian tyrant" to "voluntarily abdicate before we force you to go... as we have begun to destroy the throne of the Egyptian tyrant". King Abdullah, on an official visit to Russia at the time, was apparently shocked with the rocket attack in his favourite Jordanian getaway spot, Aqaba. He often frequents his palace on the shores of the resort town on weekends. He vowed to fight terrorism and to chase down "all those who disturb Jordan's security and stability". Palace sources said the monarch was in close contact with the country's security leaders to see how the attackers managed to smuggle mortars and a rocket launcher or more into what was supposed to be an already air- tight security area and which was further bolstered after the massive bombings in Sharm El-Sheikh. Jordan, a close US ally, was the second Arab country after Egypt to have signed a peace treaty with Israel, in 1994, and has since sharply increased security measures in the country to pre-empt possible violent repercussions of the unpopular accord. The attacks, while not targeting local tourists, came despite the fact that Jordan's State Security Court is currently hearing more than a dozen terror-related cases that include scores of suspects -- all whom were arrested before carrying out their alleged planned attacks -- and despite the high security presence around the country. Officials often boast their country was the first to have cracked down on "potential terrorists" who were trained in Al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan and who returned to the kingdom in the early 1990s. The country's security services have earned the reputation of frightening "potential terrorists" from even thinking or plotting to use violence against any target on its territories, and have not hesitated in putting advocates of violence behind bars. But whoever was responsible for the Aqaba attacks -- and Al-Qaeda seems the likely candidate -- clearly sent a message that Jordan is not immune from the explosions that are getting louder and proliferating around the region and the rest of the world. Pre-emptive operations against possible attacks have not been conducted free of complaint that innocent men -- Islamists specifically -- have been thrown in jail and sometimes coerced into making false confessions if they appear to have a tendency towards resorting to violence. But such complaints in recent years dwindled with the growing trend of violence being carried out in the name of Islam; even among Jordanian critics of human rights violations who now reluctantly admit "it is better to live in a police state than to live with the risk of terror." However, the Jordanian opposition does not agree and fears that more innocent Islamists will be rounded up in the aftermath of the Aqaba attacks. While the Islamic Action Front (IAF), the political arm of the influential Muslim Brotherhood movement, and the 14 powerful opposition professional syndicates denounced the attack that killed one Jordanian, they also made demands that officials criticised as justifying the mortar attack. In separate statements on 21 August, the IAF and its 17-member bloc in the 110-seat parliament, as well as the syndicates, implicitly blamed the pro-US Jordanian government for opening the country's doors to terrorism. They called for "keeping the Jordanian arena away from becoming a target and to maintain maximum stability by abstaining from providing any facilities or assistance to hostile forces," in clear reference to the American military. The front urged the government to maintain policies independent of US agendas in the region and to "reject any presence of American forces on Jordanian territories", while its parliamentary bloc insisted the presence of American forces in the country "does not service the security and stability of Jordan", adding that it "feeds such acts and provokes the sentiments of Jordanians". The anti-Israeli syndicates, meanwhile, said the presence of American military destroyers was "not welcome by our people and is a provocation to the sentiments of our Jordanian masses", calling on the government to prevent any stationing of American forces on Jordanian territories. Analysts predict the opposition's bold statements, none of which were reported in the national daily press, will further widen the chasm between the opposition and the government and doubtless lead to another crackdown on political activists once authorities have finished rounding up those involved in the attack.
