Jordan has foiled a plot by an al-Qaeda-linked cell to bomb its shopping centers and assassinate Western diplomats, state TV said on Sunday, thwarting an attempt to destabilize the key US ally.
Security forces had detained 11 suspects, all Jordanians, in connection with the plot, which envisaged carrying out attacks in the capital, Amman, using smuggled weapons and explosives from Syria, according to security officials cited by state TV.
The plot had been active since June.
Jordanian Minister of Information Samih al Maaytah said the arrests underscored the serious threat posed by radical “terror groups” seeking to undermine the kingdom’s long tradition of stability.
A key US ally in the Middle East and Israel’s peace partner, Jordan enjoys close ties with Western intelligence agencies and has often been targeted by al-Qaeda and other Islamist militants. The cell had targeted two major shopping malls in the capital and was planning a bombing campaign in the capital’s affluent Abdoun neighborhood, where many foreign embassies are located.
A security source said the suspects had manufactured explosives “aimed at inflicting the heaviest losses possible.”
“The group was able to devise new types of explosives to be used for the first time and planned to add TNT to increase their destructive impact,” the source said.
The same security source said there was a crucial link with Syria, where Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is battling to put down an uprising against his family’s rule.
“Their plans included getting explosives and mortars from Syria,” the security source said, saying the militants had sought to strike at a time of regional upheaval when the country’s security establishment is overstretched.
The authorities said they had seized large quantities of ammunition, machine guns and other items, such as computers.
The militants were training to use “suicide bombers using explosive belts and booby-trapped cars,” another security source said.
Maaytah told reporters that members of the militant group had spent some time in Syria, without saying when they had returned to Jordan.
“This group arrived from Syria. They have been going in and out,” Maaytah said, adding that the case had been transferred to the state security prosecutor.
Another security source said the cell had been fighting for “some period” alongside Islamist rebel groups in Syria.
Jordan has in recent months arrested scores of hardline Islamist fundamentalists along its northern border with Syria as they were about to cross into the country to join jihadist groups fighting to overthrow al-Assad.
If Jordan allows al-Assad’s opponents to aid the armed uprising, Amman’s security forces fear the Syrian government could retaliate by sending agents to carry out bomb attacks inside the country.
Intercepted e-mail showed that the cell had received advice from Iraqi al-Qaeda explosives experts.
Jordan regularly arrests Islamist suspects and puts them on trial in military courts that human rights groups say are illegal and lack proper legal safeguards. Many civic groups also say many of the Islamist cases are politically motivated.
In 2005, al-Qaeda claimed responsibility for three suicide bombings that ripped through luxury hotels in Jordan’s capital, killing dozens of people.
DIPLOMATIC THAW: The Canadian prime minister’s China visit and improved Beijing-Ottawa ties raised lawyer Zhang Dongshuo’s hopes for a positive outcome in the retrial China has overturned the death sentence of Canadian Robert Schellenberg, a Canadian official said on Friday, in a possible sign of a diplomatic thaw as Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney seeks to boost trade ties with Beijing. Schellenberg’s lawyer, Zhang Dongshuo (張東碩), yesterday confirmed China’s Supreme People’s Court struck down the sentence. Schellenberg was detained on drug charges in 2014 before China-Canada ties nosedived following the 2018 arrest in Vancouver of Huawei chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou (孟晚舟). That arrest infuriated Beijing, which detained two Canadians — Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig — on espionage charges that Ottawa condemned as retaliatory. In January
China’s military news agency yesterday warned that Japanese militarism is infiltrating society through series such as Pokemon and Detective Conan, after recent controversies involving events at sensitive sites. In recent days, anime conventions throughout China have reportedly banned participants from dressing as characters from Pokemon or Detective Conan and prohibited sales of related products. China Military Online yesterday posted an article titled “Their schemes — beware the infiltration of Japanese militarism in culture and sports.” The article referenced recent controversies around the popular anime series Pokemon, Detective Conan and My Hero Academia, saying that “the evil influence of Japanese militarism lives on in
Two medieval fortresses face each other across the Narva River separating Estonia from Russia on Europe’s eastern edge. Once a symbol of cooperation, the “Friendship Bridge” connecting the two snow-covered banks has been reinforced with rows of razor wire and “dragon’s teeth” anti-tank obstacles on the Estonian side. “The name is kind of ironic,” regional border chief Eerik Purgel said. Some fear the border town of more than 50,0000 people — a mixture of Estonians, Russians and people left stateless after the fall of the Soviet Union — could be Russian President Vladimir Putin’s next target. On the Estonian side of the bridge,
Jeremiah Kithinji had never touched a computer before he finished high school. A decade later, he is teaching robotics, and even took a team of rural Kenyans to the World Robotics Olympiad in Singapore. In a classroom in Laikipia County — a sparsely populated grasslands region of northern Kenya known for its rhinos and cheetahs — pupils are busy snapping together wheels, motors and sensors to assemble a robot. Guiding them is Kithinji, 27, who runs a string of robotics clubs in the area that have taken some of his pupils far beyond the rural landscapes outside. In November, he took a team
RSS