Thursday, April 29, 2004
Jordan's Queen Rania joins crowd of 250,000 in anti-terrorism protest

AMMAN, April 29 (AFP) - More than 250,000 people, including Queen Rania, held an anti-terrorism protest Thursday, following Jordan's disclosure it had foiled an attack that could have cost tens of thousands of lives, police said.

The demonstration was organised by trade unions and a number of  political parties to condemn the suspected Al-Qaeda chemical bombing  plot that Jordanian authorities announced Monday they had foiled.

"I am standing against terrorism," said Queen Rania. Police estimated at 250,000 the size of the crowd, which marched  from the  trade union headquarters to parliament, four kilometres (2.5 miles) away.

They burnt portraits of Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden, Abu  Mussab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian suspected mastermind of the bomb  plot, and 10 members of a dismantled terror cell, including four who  were killed. Opposition parties, among them Islamic movements, did not take  part in the march.

"We were not informed," an Islamic Action Front  chief, Hamzeh Mansour, told AFP. The demonstrators, carrying Jordanian flags, called for the  authorities "to strike down traitors with an iron fist".

Jordanian officials said they foiled the plot to carry out  chemical attacks on the intelligence department in Amman that could have killed tens of thousands of people.

Plans were also in the making to attack the US embassy and the  prime ministry, they said. State television broadcast confessions by  the suspects.