Jordan Says It Foiled Attack on Capital ("bomb ...have flattened a large part of Jordan's capital")

AP ^ | Tue, Apr 20, 2004 | jamal Halaby

[Eurotwit]

AMMAN, Jordan - Police on Tuesday shot and killed three suspected terrorists who were believed to have planned to detonate a bomb that would have flattened a large part of Jordan's capital, security officials said.

Working on a tip, police stormed a hideout in east Amman where the suspects had been hiding, the police said in a statement carried by the official Petra news agency.

A security official told The Associated Press that the three killed were believed to have links to a terrorist group that had plotted to attack the prime minister's office and Jordan's secret service with a powerful chemical bomb. The official spoke to the AP on customary condition of anonymity.

The plot was disclosed earlier this week and was said to have been foiled last month.

Had the bomb exploded, it could have killed at least 20,000 people and wrecked buildings within a half-mile, government officials have told the AP.

The group is also believed to have planned to attack the U.S. Embassy and other diplomatic missions with poison gas, government officials have said. Police uncovered the plot late last month and arrested most of its members in two raids.

In Tuesday's shootout, police called for the suspects to surrender, but they responded with gunfire, the statement said. The incident took place at 2:20 p.m. in the predominantly Palestinian district of Hashemi, the statement said.

"Information made available to security authorities pointed to the presence of an armed group which had plotted to carry out terror attacks," the statement added.

Two of the three men killed were foreigners, according to police.

It was not immediately clear how many suspects were involved in the shootout and if any escaped.

The government said that in the earlier sweeps that uncovered the bombing and chemical plots, police arrested an unspecified number of suspects and seized at least three cars filled with explosives and detonators. It said the suspects and their cars had entered Jordan from Syria, which denied the allegation.

Twenty-two Arab men were convicted in a terror plot that targeted U.S. and Israeli tourists in the 2000 millennium celebrations in Jordan.

Jordan, a moderate Arab nation with close ties to the United States and a peace treaty with Israel, has been targeted by the al-Qaida terror organization of Osama bin Laden (news - web sites) and other groups.

[eureka!]

What a coinky dink. The Clymeriated Pressholes just ran it on the wires...

[So Cal Rocket]

Interesting... no mention in the article that the "chemical" in the bomb plot was VX Nerve Gas!!

[per loin]

HadHad the bomb exploded, it could have killed at least 20,000 people and wrecked buildings within a half-mile, government officials have told the AP.

A devastation zone one mile in diameter? How big was this bomb?

[Cap Huff]

"It [the government] said the suspects and their cars had entered Jordan from Syria, which denied the allegation."

I seem to recall that on an earlier thread King Abdullah was reported to have taken care to try to fall short of officially implicating Syria, but anybody aware of this story (so far too few people) knows what the score really is.

[Rutles4Ever]

Things are reaching critical mass. This is going to be a difficult year.

Pray and be prepared.

[redgolum]

Looks like all h@#l is about to break loose. Hope my friends in the Sand Box (Iraq) are right now getting ready for a area wide conflict.

[freeperfromnj]

planned to detonate a bomb that would have flattened a large part of Jordan's capital

What kind of a bomb was this anyway?

[js1138]

I seem to recall that on an earlier thread King Abdullah was reported to have taken care to try to fall short of officially implicating Syria...

So the options are:

1. Syria has WMDs and collaborated in a plot to destroy Jordan's government.
2. Syria has WMDs and fails to control them.
3. Syria has a stockpile of Iraqi weapons and looks the other way while AQ borrows them.
4. All of the above.

[Cap Huff]

I always have trouble with multiple guess questions, but I'll choose 4.

[blueminnesota]

I hope this isn't true. I'm travelling to Amman in Sept. I wasn't worried before because Jordan always seemed to keep out of most of the regional crap. Just damn.

[FreeAtlanta]

No kidding. If this was Clinton and everyone was hounding him about NO WMD, NO WMD, bs, then the AP, Reuter and NYTimes would be running this with the headline "Deadly Iraqi WMD - VX Gas - discovered in plot to bomb Jordanian Captal!" and we would have heard about it for weeks.

Why do I feel that we are living in German's 1930's and Goebels has the keys to the press?

[Dog]

Someone the other day on this site.....I can't remember who......scoffed at me when I posted this attack would have devastated Amman.

I was right.

[Dog]

Cap .....there has to be a planned Al Qaeda third strike lurking out there.

If things had went as planned....

Manchester England would have have thousands dead Saturday.

Amman Jordan 20,000 dead in this planned attack.

Who is number 3?

Someone is working his way down a list.

BTW Cap .....while I was out and about this AM I heard on the radio.....those arrested in Manchester were Iraqi Kurds.

[Tarantulas]

Nice! The Associated Press lends legitimacy and the naysayers are silenced.

[redgolum]

I will keep you in my prayers. My brother in law is heading to Russia and China soon for business, and he keeps asking me if he should go. Jordon is getting targeted because they are "soft" on Westerners.

Two major attacks stopped in a few days. What else is planned?

[Eurotwit]

The Jordanian FM was just on CNN

- If I am not mistaken he said that King Abdullah's decision to return home was not related to US mid east policy.

[Dog]

Let me know what else they say.

Something else is planned I'll bet.

[Eurotwit]

It's all over. It ended with Powell telling the reports how their "Woodward" questions were getting silly.

The CNN Int. anchors saying that Abdullah left due to US-Israel.

[pawdoggie]

You forgot option #5: that Al-Qaeda, with or without Bashir's knowledge, has access to Saddam's stash of WMD which was shipped to Syria. I find it hard to credit the "poison gas" angle, because if it were true one would have to believe that the President's men would be all over this, since it constitutes prima facie evidence that Saddam Hussein, Bashir Assad, or both of them have a WMD relationship with Al-Qaeda.