Suspected Terrorists Could Be Al Qaida (Jordan)

The Press Association (UK) ^ | 3 April 2004 | Unknown

[Cap Huff]

Jordanian officials said today that suspected terrorists detained this week carrying explosives may have belonged to al Qaida and been linked to plots to blow up vital public facilities to destabilise the US-allied Arab kingdom.

In light of the fears, security forces have beefed up patrols and car searches across the capital, Amman, and issued alerts and rewards for three wanted fugitives and two cars with explosives believed associated with the men arrested earlier this week, officials said.

The terror suspects in custody were arrested when their vehicle – filled with explosives, detonators and bombs – was nabbed in a Jordanian town on the Syrian border.

They confessed to plotting a series of deadly terror attacks in Jordan, officials close to the investigation said.

Jordanian officials, said that cars carrying the suspected terrorists and explosives entered the country from neighbouring Syria, claims which Damascus denies.

The suspects were planning to attack sensitive government institutions, the officials said without elaborating. But security has been significantly tightened around public offices, especially the interior and prime ministries.

The officials said investigators are examining the possible link between the detained suspects and Jordanian militant Ahmed al-Khalayleh, a reputed top al Qaida figure better known as Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

Al-Zaraqawi, who is thought to be a close associate of Osama bin Laden, has been convicted and sentenced to death in absentia in Jordan for several terror plots against American and Israeli targets in the kingdom, the officials said.

Al-Zarqawi is suspected of connection to about a dozen high-profile attacks in Iraq, including the bombing of the UN headquarters in August and Shiite religious ceremonies last month. Moroccan authorities believe he may have helped guide the Madrid train bombings.

US and Jordanian law enforcement say he funded the Oct. 2002 assassination of a US diplomat in Jordan.

Jordan, a moderate Arab nation with close ties to America and a peace treaty with Israel, has been targeted by al Qaida and other terrorists.

Twenty-two Islamic extremists were convicted of plotting to attack U.S. and Israeli tourists during the kingdom’s millennium celebrations.

Authorities are still hunting for three suspected fugitive terrorists and two other explosive-laden cars following tips obtained from the detainees, nationalities, number and confessions have not yet been made public.

It was not immediately clear where the terror suspects and the ammunition entered Jordan from. But the location of where the first explosive-laden vehicle was seized, in the northern town of Ramtha, six miles from the Syrian border, has sparked speculation that it entered from Syria.

In a bid to soothe Syrian anxiety over the claims, Jordanian government spokeswoman Asma Khader said even if the vehicles did enter from Syria, “we are confident this wasn’t because of negligence and certainly not because they were aware” of the plot.

The United States has demanded Syria do more to stamp out its suspected support for terrorists and supporting fighters opposed to Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands and the US-led military presence in Iraq. Syria rejects the US claims.

[Cap Huff]

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[Valin]

Jordanian officials, said that cars carrying the suspected terrorists and explosives entered the country from neighbouring Syria, claims which Damascus denies.

So I guess the cars must of just magically appeared in Jordan.
That's a neat trick.

[Cap Huff]

Chitty-chitty bang bang. :-)

[finnman69]

Im thinking Syria will be donating a LOT of money to the Kerry campaign.

[festus]

Why does it matter if he's Al Qaida or Abduls Islamic Liberation Movement and Bakery.

Its all the same can-o-worms.

I mean do we care which flavor of terrorist they are ?

[Valin]

I mean do we care which flavor of terrorist they are ?

I don't see that it does. It's a mind set we are fighting.
Something you(and others might be interested in reading

Al Qaeda’s Fantasy Ideology

By Lee Harris

Know your enemy” is a well-known maxim, but one that is difficult to observe in practice. Nor is the reason for this hard to fathom: If you are my enemy, it is unlikely that I will go very much out of my way to learn to see things from your point of view. And if this is true even in those cases where the conflict is between groups that share a common culture, how much more true will it be when there is a profound cultural and psychological chasm between the antagonists?

Yet, paradoxically, this failure to understand the enemy can arise not only from a lack of sympathy with his position, but also from a kind of misplaced sympathy: When confronted by a culturally exotic enemy, our first instinct is to understand such conduct in terms that are familiar to us — terms that make sense to us in light of our own fund of experience. We assume that if our enemy is doing x, it must be for reasons that are comprehensible in terms of our universe....

http://www.policyreview.org/AUG02/harris.html

[Cap Huff]

In a certain sense it doesn't matter. A terrorist stopped or killed is a terrorist out of business.

But finding the links, finding the connections, identifying the players is part of what this war is about. We're not fighting the Nazis here. The enemy has no home territory (at least not much of one in the traditional sense) wears no uniforms, and has no clear command and control. Before we take them out we've got to find them.

I didn't post this because I thought it surprising that there is a link to al-Qaeda. I assumed that when first hearing the story. The hope here is that these guys will talk, and reveal a bit more of the connections, maybe leading to other take downs. Getting al-Zarqawi and those close to him wouldn't be the end of it, but it would go a long way in hampering them.

I've not yet read the link from Valin (thanks for linking), but commenting a bit about the identity of al-Qaeda, I hope that most people are beginning to get the idea that AQ is not a tightly controlled, hierachical, positively definable organization in itself. They don't carry membership cards and members don't learn the secret hand shake after getting inducted. The corporate or business franchise model comes closer to reality, I think. Going a bit further, I could imagine that it extends to a certain mind-set that results in certain affiliations.

Just about all of us on this forum have some flavor of conservative mind-set. Many of us are active posters. Many more lurkers. A good percentage of us are registered Republicans. Some may be party volunteers. A few may actually be elected to some office at some level of government. Some may be followers of Pat Buchanan, and won't usually vote for a Republican. The point here is that the mind-set results in affiliations that are somewhat predictable, but are not homogenous. I don't want to carry the analogy too far, but if someone found out I'm an active poster here, they would have a good idea of my mind set, and a good idea that I may also be affiliated with the Republican party.

[Grampa Dave]

Good.

Soon, we will have a lot of Arabic countries hunting and killing these feral animals, the Islamonazis and Islamodumbos.

When, they have a lot of countries hunting and killing them, they will not be able as successful in killing innocents.

[Valin]

But finding the links, finding the connections, identifying the players is part of what this war is about.

YES! So much of this war is being fought so far below the radar screen that it won't see the light of day for decades(if ever). These guys are REAL easy to kill or capture IF you can find them.

[festus]

I guess to use your Nazi example it makes about as much difference to me if we were shooting Nazi's from the northern german region or the southern. They were all Nazi's.

Indeed if we can get info about and/or disrupt one group of al-qaeda or some other group its good.

But there are those, not suggesting you are among them, that say but that group isn't al-qaida. Inferring that we are targeting the wrong group. Case in point Iraq. It doesn't matter any more than quibbling about which division of the german army you were attacking and only trying to attack the "bad" ones.

Heck just flatten every terrorist you come across or those who harbor them and I'll be happy.

[Coop]

Poor Syria. I mean, they're just minding their own business, promoting peace & harmony throughout the world, and these mean ol' terrorists keep getting connected back to Damascus. [tsk, tsk]