While Jordanian Islamists working in electoral politics appear to be a powerful force, Galal Nassar, in Amman, wonders whether the kingdom's more violent Islamist trend is as formidable as security agencies claim As bitter rivalries heat up in Jordan amongst diverse political trends and regional and ethnic forces, contradictions seething throughout the Arab world have been thrown into high relief in the Hashemite Kingdom. Jordan is paying a heavy price for its geographical location, with Iraq to its west and Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories to its east. This, in conjunction with a population consisting of some 75 per cent ethnic Palestinians, ensures that regional developments reverberate powerfully on the Jordanian street. During my last visit to the country, the public's attention was riveted on the historic city of Ma'an, the scene of daily confrontations between state forces and elements Jordanian officials describe as outlaws with Al-Qa'eda connections. The official position on the conflict evokes American justifications for attacking Afghanistan and for the clampdowns currently in progress on dissident forces in Yemen, the Philippines and Indonesia. Still vivid in my mind is a scene I saw repeatedly over two days. A white Volvo bearing civilian licence plates moving through the capital as it conveyed in the back seat a man guarding two others who were blindfolded and apparently being detained by Jordanian security. In August, King Abdullah II announced that parliamentary elections scheduled for the summer would be postponed until spring. Although the Jordanian monarch said the extraordinary circumstances through which the country was passing were not conducive to a smooth electoral process, insiders knew that the situation was far more delicate. Had elections been held, the Islamists would, in all likelihood, have swept the polls, largely on the basis of electoral campaigns focusing on developments across the borders in Iraq and the occupied Palestinian territories. Islamists vehemently condemn the state for its determination to sustain normal relations with Israel and the US in spite of the daily outrages being perpetrated -- apparently with Washington's blessing -- against Palestinians in the occupied territories. Harping on this issue alone would have secured widespread support among Jordan's ethnic Palestinians, not to mention the hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees living in the 10 United Nations Relief Works Agency (UNRWA) camps in the kingdom. Although Abdullah, in his statement postponing elections, alluded to the existence of outside forces bent on undermining his country's stability, the king also realises that some concessions must be made to critics of his foreign policy. The avenue that presents itself most clearly is to oppose a potential US strike against Iraq -- but in a manner that would not antagonise President George W Bush's administration. The king has thus met frequently with Russian, French and German leaders, hopeful that they will act to restrain Washington's trigger finger, but is careful to stress in each meeting the sensitive demographic and political map that always has Amman teetering precariously on the brink of violent upheaval. Certainly, this helps to explain the composition of the delegation that recently accompanied Abdullah to Moscow. Although the delegation included the heads of Jordanian intelligence and domestic and foreign security agencies, Minister of Foreign Affairs Marwan Al-Muasher was conspicuous by his absence. Jordan's communications with those Western countries reflect a new line of thinking in Amman, long accustomed to discussing issues of security and foreign policy with Washington. It seems that Jordanian officials have come to realise that dialogue is futile with a partner that cannot fathom the scale of the catastrophe that awaits their country in the event of a war against Iraq or an escalation of the brutality against the Palestinians in the occupied territories. A spectre no less sinister that the riots of Black September in 1970 has cast its shadow over Jordan, which is already in the throes of progressive economic decline and social deterioration owing to the 11- year-long economic blockade of Iraq that has cut off a vital source of national income. Against this backdrop, Amman has become acutely aware of the need to appeal to other powers that have a stake in curbing the sway of radical Islamist groups that espouse violence as a means of making their presence felt and imposing their political will. Recent attacks against foreign diplomats in Jordan have made it clear that the Islamist organisations, which operate on an international scale, have succeeded in penetrating the country's security wall and in recruiting members from among Palestinian and Jordanian youth. As a result, the government of Jordan had no alternative but to move against Ma'an, which it suspects had become a lair for Al-Qa'eda members. Nevertheless, the military action and other security measures were heavily marred by violations to civil and human rights. One of the human rights activists I met with in Jordan informed me that his organisation had received a petition containing the signatures of 400 families along with powers-of-attorney to represent them in suits against the state for violations perpetrated against them during the military operation in Ma'an. The anxiety in Jordan over the escalating confrontation in Ma'an and its potential impact on national stability compels a closer inspection of terrorist operations in that country. That the security clampdown in the southern city was triggered by the assassination of an American diplomat in Amman raises fundamental questions. Notably, what is the extent of organising in support of extremist activities in the country? The assassination of Larry Foley on 28 October stands apart from other acts of violence that have occurred recently in Amman. Although responsibility was immediately attributed to an extremist Islamist group, in what has become an almost automatic reaction to a terrorist attack, the question remains, which group? Security officials in Jordan are vague on this matter. Extremist organisations crop up regularly, with a new one proclaiming its existence on an average of once a year. Moreover, it frequently seems as though such organisations are created to mount a single operation; following an attack, organisation members are typically arrested and the entity disintegrates, never to be heard of again. Nevertheless, preliminary information released by Jordanian authorities suggests that Larry Foley's assassins were more professional and experienced than the perpetrators of all previous terrorist acts. Certainly, the assassination betrayed none of the naiveté and clumsiness that gave authorities advance knowledge of an impending operation and enabled them to avert it or apprehend the perpetrators when it occurred. Jordanian security has interrogated many Islamist activists in the course of its investigations into the assassination. A little known group calling itself Shurafa' Al-'Urdun (The Righteous of Jordan) has claimed responsibility for the operation, announcing in a statement released to the London-based Al-Quds Al-Arabi that the assassination was in protest against US support for Israel and its shedding of Muslim blood in Iraq and Afghanistan. Jordanian officials do not take the claim seriously. Foley, 63, who was an employee of USAID (the United States Agency for International Development), was shot dead from close range as he was leaving his home for work at the US Embassy. The diplomat lived in a quarter of the capital populated primarily by Jordanians of Chechen origin. The US Embassy, located just metres away from the residence of the Israeli ambassador, is now heavily barricaded behind a phalanx of armoured vehicles, police and armed forces, rendering passage down that street, especially at night, a daunting prospect for anyone with a home or business in the area. A Jordanian security source told Al-Ahram Weekly that Foley's wife found her husband's body shortly after he was shot and called the police, who immediately cordoned off the area and began the search for evidence. Neither Foley's widow, any neighbours or passers-by recalled hearing gunfire, indicating that the assassin used a silencer. In the wake of the incident, the source continued, security officials from Western embassies and international organisations visited the homes and workplaces of their respective personnel to inspect security arrangements and offer counsel. Their primary advice to their employees, especially those living near the US, British and Israeli embassies or diplomatic residences, was to change their place of residence. They also advised increasing the lighting outside official buildings, increasing the number of security guards and parking vehicles with diplomatic licence plates out of sight of the street, preferably in secure garages. Embassies also issued advisories to their nationals to remain at home in the evening, to refrain from visiting Ma'an or even using the highway connecting the southern city to the capital without first notifying embassy security officials. They also directed their nationals to refrain from going to Palestinian refugee camps or areas with high concentrations of Palestinian residents until further notice. Security and diplomatic officials in Amman put Foley's assassination in the same category as a series of other acts of violence in the past five years, namely, the murder of an Israeli diamond merchant, the murder of an Iraqi businessman and his guests and the murder of the prominent Jordanian lawyer Hanna Nada. Although these crimes were non-political in nature, they are similar to the assassination of the diplomat by virtue of their reliance on precision planning, their expert execution and because they took security officials entirely by surprise. Organised violence attributed to a variety of extremist Islamist groups began in Jordan intermittently and on a limited scale in the early 1990s. Upon assuming power in 1999, King Abdullah II issued an amnesty releasing all 64 individuals in prison on charges of extremist- related violence. What was the nature of the groups involved in the upsurge of religious- inspired terrorist activities during this period? In 1991, the government of Jordan announced that it had arrested members of a group calling itself the Army of Mohamed. The accused were prosecuted for mounting a series of terrorist acts, namely, the burning of the French Cultural Centre library, a night-time shelling of the façade of a British bank and blowing up the cars of a Jordanian intelligence officer and a Christian clergyman. Although handed down harsh sentences, the group was released under a general amnesty in 1992. Since that time the Army of Mohamed has all but vanished, and its members, most of whom had relatively little schooling, resumed their ordinary lives with no evident connection to religious zealotry. The Army of Mohamed first proclaimed its existence in Peshawar in the late 1980s. A Jordanian university professor declared himself leader of the "universal" organisation, although it is unclear why that group would have chosen as its leader an individual whose holy war ideology, which he broadcast with spectacular, if crude, showmanship, was focused solely on Jordan, in which he sought to establish as the seat of a revived Islamic caliphate. In any case, in the early 1990s the professor returned to Amman where he is now a senior official in the Ministry of Awqaf (Religious Endowments) and Islamic Affairs. For a time, too, he served as dean of the Ministry's Faculty of Islamic Mission and Religious Principles and was the most prominent official Muslim television personality. Another group to emerge in the early 1990s was Al-Nafir Al-Islami (The Islamic Herald). In 1992, parliamentary members Leith Shubeilat and Yaqub Qirs and two other individuals were arrested and tried on charges of belonging to this terrorist organisation. Although they were condemned to death, the sentence was subsequently reduced to life imprisonment. The four were then released under the general amnesty of 1992, after which nothing further was heard of the organisation, perhaps lending credence to Shubeilat's claim that it never existed in the first place. Shubeilat maintains that the witnesses summoned by the prosecution gave false testimony and that their true identities were concealed. Similarly, in 1993 a group of military cadets from the University of Mu'ta were tried and sentenced to death. However, in that year it became possible to appeal the verdicts of the National Security Court. The Court of Cassation which heard the cadets' appeal acquitted all the defendants and ruled that the case against them had been fabricated and that their testimonies had been extracted under intimidation and torture. In a televised statement in 1994, the minister of interior announced the discovery of an organisation calling itself the Jordanian Afghans that it said was plotting to bomb banks and cinemas and to assassinate parliamentary deputies and leading intellectuals. The one or two guns and 40 dinars the police found in the possession of the accused could hardly have sufficed to mount operations on the scale the minister of interior suggested. In addition, the 13 young men taken into custody had never been to Afghanistan and had no prior knowledge of one another. It is true that there were two attempted bombings of cinemas, one in Amman and the other in Zarqa. With respect to one of those incidents, it came to light that the youth who placed the explosive device in the cinema was psychologically disturbed, for which reason he had been exempted from military service and that he was not religious and never performed the most basic Islamic observances. The prosecution proceedings revealed that a second person had given the young man 20 dinars to take the explosive device into the cinema. The young man was supposed to sit through the film, leave with the other spectators and then set off the bomb so that no one would be injured. Somehow, however, the bomb went off while he was watching the film, suggesting that he was either too incompetent to set the timing device or that he had considered taking his own life. The young man was initially sentenced to life, but later pardoned on psychiatric and humanitarian grounds, the court having determined that he was not mentally competent enough to realise what he was doing and that he also supported a family. In addition, a Saudi citizen was accused of funding the group. Tried in absentia, he was found guilty and sentenced to death. He was then apprehended in the US and handed over to the Jordanian authorities; in his retrial before the National Security Court he was acquitted. In 1995, two Islamist youths were accused of the attempted murder of a French diplomat. Although acquitted by the criminal court, in a subsequent trial before the National Security Court they were found guilty of terrorism and possession of explosives. In 1996, four youths were arrested for attempting to obtain land mines. In 1967 the Jordanian army had mined an area in western Jordan in anticipation of an Israeli assault. The young men were caught in the act of sneaking into this now abandoned area and taking some mines, which they were alleged to have been planning to use against Israeli tourists. In 2000, Jordanian authorities announced that they had arrested a terrorist group plotting to target tourist sites and Jordanian and foreign officials. Although this case differed little from the previously publicised cases involving Islamist extremists, it did feature a new dimension in the form of closer US involvement. US officials announced that a group of extremists linked to Osama Bin Laden had been arrested in a Middle East country and that the group was planning terrorist operations against the US. The announcement is speculated to have prompted then Jordanian Prime Minister Abdel-Raouf Al-Rawabda to disclose to parliament that security authorities had arrested 13 Muslim extremists, including an Iraqi and an Algerian, who had been trained in Afghanistan and some of whom had been previously arrested in connection with other terrorist cases. Apart from this, the information released by Jordanian authorities in connection with this case reveals nothing that would suggest a significant development in the nature of the extremist organisations and their operations since 1991. Among those mentioned in connection with previous terrorist cases was Mohamed Abu-Gawshar, one of the founders of the Army of Mohamed and alleged to have ties to Al-Islah wal-Tahaddi (Reform and Challenge), a group that surfaced in 1998 and was held responsible for blowing up the car of a former security official, an Israeli car parked in a hotel garage and the wall of an American school in Amman. The case of the 13 "Arab Afghans" bore a marked similarity with most, if not all, its predecessors since 1991. The group's operations were limited in scope, and then tended to be executed in a rudimentary fashion -- if at all. The operations tended to be followed by the almost immediate arrest of group members -- if the plans had not been thwarted before the fact. This latter fact suggests a powerful and extensive state infiltration of these organisations, if, indeed, they existed at all. On the other hand, there is nothing to suggest that the organisations extended beyond a handful of members or that they were branches or cells of some larger organisation with a central command, complex hierarchy and administrative structure. The groups arrested so far ranged between three and 15 members, at most, and they have tended to be made up of people who were friends or acquaintances. More often than not they were infiltrated or discovered in the process of attempting to procure arms, training or technical assistance. Of all the groups, Al-Islah wal-Tahaddi appears the most experienced and accomplished, judging by the acts described above, which were clearly symbolic in their intent. According to press reports, the suspects who had claimed responsibility for the acts of this group also confessed to having committed major felonies, such as killing a policeman and murder in the course of armed robbery. The court, however, regarded the defendants as hardened criminals who were attempting to mislead it. At present in Jordan several radical Islamist groups are being prosecuted for smuggling arms to Palestine and another group has been charged with bombing the car of an intelligence officer during which two passers-by, an Iraqi and an Egyptian, were killed. All indications are that the groups involved in such terrorist acts are small, disorganised and loosely structured, if structured at all. While it is impossible to deny that Islamist extremism exists in Jordan and that there are a number of officially sanctioned movements and political parties, such as the Islamic Liberation Party, that espouse an Islamist platform, there is no evidence linking them to terrorist activities. The same applies to the many small radical groups that coalesce around the personalities of minor imams [prayer leaders] and that have emanated or splintered off from umbrella organisations such as the Muslim Brotherhood. In spite of their condemnations of the state, officials and society as heretic, the members of such groups have never participated in paramilitary activities or organised violence. Perhaps the only such group that merits being described as a structured cohesive organisation is the Baia Al-Imam (Devotees of the Imam). This group, the core members of which were released from prison under the general amnesty of 1999, subscribes to an ultra-radical Jihadist, or holy war, platform. Yet, while its members are believed to have fought in Afghanistan, Kurdistan and Chechnya, they have not perpetrated terrorist acts inside Jordan. Simultaneously, the incidents that are currently the focus of attention in the courts and the press in Jordan all share several characteristics. They appear to have been hastily planned, mounted more or less spontaneously at the instigation of an individual or small group, indicate no connections to an authority or organisation outside that group and they were confined to one-off operations. Significantly, too, the names attributed to the groups were the invention of security agencies solely for the purpose of facilitating prosecution procedures and distinguishing between one group and another. Clearly, the general portrait of extremist violence in Jordan appears at odds with the expertise with which the assassination of Foley was carried out. One is, therefore, led to conclude that this operation was masterminded by an agency based outside of Jordan and that the perpetrators, who were apparently highly trained, did not belong to any of the known Islamist groups in Jordan. In fact, it cannot be ruled out that the perpetrators were may not have been Islamists at all, but perhaps emerged from one of those groups that was active in Jordan until the end of the 1980s. Either that, or there is a new generation of, as yet, unknown radical groups that are far more skilled and efficiently organised than their predecessors.
