Jordan Times
Friday - Saturday, November 23 - 24, 2001
Jordan playing key role in anti-terrorist intelligence gathering
By Randa Habib
AMMAN (AFP) — The global war on terrorism has highlighted Jordan's role as a key nation among those providing precious intelligence information on terrorist networks, due to its long experience of fighting such groups.In interviews with AFP, experts underscored the efforts made by Jordan's sophisticated intelligence services in foiling recent attempts by Osama Ben Laden's Al Qaeda network, a prime suspect in the Sept. 11 terror attacks in the US.
“The success of the intelligence services is to foil operations before they take place,” one expert told AFP Wednesday, describing the Jordanian agents as some of the most effective in the region.
“If the world had listened to Jordan when it warned about Ben Laden, we would not be here now,” the expert said on condition of anonymity.
On Oct. 16, a senior Jordanian official told AFP that the Kingdom had recently pre-empted several attacks, including planned bombings of the US, British and Jordanian embassies in Beirut, by groups linked to Al Qaeda.
Since the Sept. 11 attacks, Jordan has arrested some 10 suspects, alleged to be linked to Ben Laden and suspected of plotting attacks, another official told AFP.
“Hotels in the southern resorts of Aqaba (Red Sea) and Petra as well as the Queen Alia International Airport in Amman were among the targets,” the official said.
“These attempts were foiled thanks to close surveillance of individuals suspected of ties to Ben Laden,” he said.
Jordan has had a long experience with terrorism.
One of the country's first “terror” victims was the country's founder, King Abdullah I, who was assassinated in Jerusalem in 1951.
Two of Jordan's prime ministers were also gunned down, in 1955 and 1971.
The 1980s were plagued by dozens of bombings and attacks masterminded by Palestinian extremist and international outlaw Abu Nidal, before Al Qaeda stepped into the action.
In 1994, a 25-member network financed by a brother-in-law of Ben Laden, Mohammad Jamal Khalifa, was dismantled in Jordan.
The group's aim had been to assassinate former Prime Minister Abdul Salam Majali, who steered peace negotiations with Israel that led to the Jordan-Israel peace treaty in 1994, as well as Palestinian moderates Hanan Ashrawi and the late Faisal Husseini.
Jordan's intelligence services foiled another group in 1998, which had carried out bomb attacks in the Kingdom.
The group known as Reform and Challenge (Al Islah Wal Tahhadi) was financed by Abu Qatada, a Jordanian of Palestinian origin, who has enjoyed political asylum in Britain since 1993.
Spanish authorities have named the 40-year-old, in a sealed judicial indictment, as Al Qaeda's “spiritual leader” in Europe and one of its key financiers, London's Independent newspaper reported Wednesday.
Jordan has urged Britain to extradite him, in vain.
Amman renewed its request twice in 1999 after authorities here apprehended another group linked to Ben Laden, accused of plotting several attacks in the Kingdom.
Jordan accused Abu Qatada of financing the group.
In May 2000, then-US president Bill Clinton praised the work done by the Jordanian intelligence services which helped foil 15 terror attacks in the United States and Europe over the millennium celebrations.
Last month, His Majesty King Abdullah told AFP in an exclusive interview that investigations were under way in Amman over reports of terrorist plots against himself and the Jordanian people. “As time goes by we will be able to release more information and you'll be surprised what the Jordanian intelligence service has done in terms of preventing attacks on Americans, on Jordanians and inside Europe,” he said.