Terror threat on the rise

iafrica.com ^ | Posted Tue, 01 Apr 2003 | Bertrand Rosenthal

[miltonim]

The arrest of four men accused of plotting to blow up a luxury hotel in Amman showed on Tuesday that the threat of terrorist attacks hangs over the Middle East region, and beyond, since the US-led strike on Iraq began 12days ago.

Vatican foreign minister Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran warned last week: "This war will give birth to all possible types of extremism, including Islamic.

We should be aware of that.

It will cause terrorism."

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak for his part warned on Monday that the "appalling human tragedy" resulting from the fighting in Iraq could produce "100 Osama bin Ladens", referring to the head of the al-Qaeda terror movement.

Jordanian authorities arrested four Iraqis on suspicion of plotting to blow up a luxury Amman hotel frequented by US nationals and foreign journalists, diplomatic sources told AFP on Tuesday.

And Iraqi diplomats, recently expelled from the kingdom, were reportedly planning to poison water supplies serving military bases near the Iraqi border used by US personnel, the sources said.

Last Friday, Washington said it had foiled two Iraqi plots against US interests in two unnamed Middle Eastern countries and added that similar plans had been uncovered in some 10 cities worldwide.

That same day, President George W. Bush's administration said terrorists were planning anti-American attacks in Yemen.

It asked some 60 countries to expel Iraqi diplomats.

"Many went ahead," said a US official, though the actual number was 17, expelling a total of 70 diplomats.

Meanwhile the Palestinian radical movement Islamic Jihad said it had sent suicide bombers to Baghdad to fight invading US and British forces, the day after a suicide attack in Iraq which killed four US troops, attributed to an Iraqi non-commissioned officer but likened to terrorism by the Pentagon.

The announcement came at the same time as the group claimed responsibility for a suicide attack in the Israeli town of Netanya on Sunday which killed the bomber and injured 26 people, and which the group said was "a gift from Palestine to the heroic people of Iraq."

The fear of attacks has affected Europe, where a survey revealed Monday that 69 percent of Spaniards dread operations by hardline Islamist groups on their soil.

Security has also been stepped up in Britain, Germany and France.

Britain revised its travel advice for northeast and east Malaysia Friday, urging people to take account of the threat posed by Philippines-based group Abu Sayyaf.

In Chile, the police said two attacks against US and Spanish firms were linked to groups opposing the war in Iraq.

And in the United States Chicago mayor Richard Daley announced that the city had closed a downtown airport used mainly by private and business aircraft to protect the country's third largest city from aerial attack.

[estjohn]

Yet another totally biased terrorsim article. America is the cause of terrorism, not the terrorists.

[Coop]

The arrest of four men accused of plotting to blow up a luxury hotel in Amman showed on Tuesday that the threat of terrorist attacks hangs over the Middle East region, and beyond, since the US-led strike on Iraq began 12 days ago.

Oh geez! What have we done? A couple of weeks ago the Middle East was a Utopia, and now we've turned it into a barren wasteland crawling with homicidal terrorists!