Jordan Times
Wednesday, October 17, 2001
'Jordan has been at war against Ben Laden for decade'
AMMAN (AFP) — Jordan has been at war against terrorist suspect Osama Ben Laden for a decade, Information Minister Saleh Qallab told AFP on Tuesday.“Jordan has been at war with Ben Laden since 1991 but the confrontation intensified over the last few years,” Qallab said.
“We did not seek a quarrel with him, he is the one that came to us to set up in Jordan networks to carry out attacks against strategic sites in Jordan,” he said.
The United States has designated Ben Laden and his Al Qaeda network as the prime suspects in the Sept. 11 terror attacks on New York and Washington.
Qallab said Jordan's “position with regard to Ben Laden precedes the US position and that is why we back every effort aimed at eradicating these groups which have targeted our territory.”
“We will never allow Ben Laden to be the spokesman for Islam and Arabs,” he added.
Earlier Tuesday a high-ranking government official told AFP that Jordan had helped Lebanon foil recently a series of attacks against embassies in Lebanon.
The official said Osbat Al Ansar, one of 27 organisations targeted in the US “war on terrorism,” had been planning attacks on Western and Arab embassies in Beirut, including the US, British and Jordanian missions.
A Lebanese security official later denied the report.
However, judiciary sources in Beirut said later Tuesday that two suspected members of the Lebanon-based Osbat Al Ansar have been arrested for allegedly planning attacks.
Daniel Ahmad Samarji, 22, and Bilal Ali Othman, 26, were arrested in the northern city of Tripoli on the orders of a military court for “planning terrorist acts, illegal dealing in weapons of war and discharging firearms,” the judiciary sources said.
The date of the arrests was not specified, but the two were to be referred to the court on Tuesday.
Al Nahar newspaper said Samarji had revealed armed groups had been formed in Tripoli and the Dinniyeh hills overlooking the Sunni Muslim port city “to carry out attacks against American interests in the Middle East.”
Samarji had links to Abu Ayyasheh, a supporter of suspected terrorist mastermind Ben Laden and who was killed in January 2000 in a Lebanese army offensive against a Sunni armed revolt in Dinniyeh, the paper said.
“After the Sept. 11 attacks in New York and Washington, Samarji is said to have decided to set up a new armed group to target American interests,” according to Al Nahar.
“He is alleged to have purchased arms for this purpose and received financial backing from a certain Abu Mujahed, whose true identity has been revealed to investigators.”