Jordan foils Al-Qaeda-linked suicide attack
(AFP)
Updated: 2006-03-02 10:31

Jordan has foiled an Al-Qaeda-linked suicide attack on "a vital civilian installation" and arrested a Libyan and two Iraqis, state television said, quoting a security official.

Jordanian security forces on guard in front of a billboard that reads in Arabic "Jordan First." Jordan has foiled an Al-Qaeda-linked suicide attack on "a vital civilian installation" and arrested a Libyan and two Iraqis, state television said, quoting a security official. [AFP]

"The intelligence services have managed to foil a terrorist suicide attack which a terrorist group that belongs to Al-Qaeda planned to carry out against a vital civilian installation," television said.

A Libyan and two Iraqis were arrested and the Jordanian authorities are trying to track down a Saudi national and three Iraqis who took part in the plot and who apparently fled to a neighbouring country, the report said.

"The intelligence services seized four kilograms (8.8 pounds) of heavy explosives," the security official said, according to a statement read on state television.

It said that the explosives were of the same kind used in the November 9 triple hotel bombings in Amman that killed 60 people and which were claimed by the Al-Qaeda in Iraq group of Jordanian fugitive Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

Jordan arrested Iraqi would-be suicide bomber Sajida al-Rishawi after the attacks and in a dramatic television confession, the woman said her husband blew himself up in one of the hotels but she was unable to trigger her bomb.

Television showed pictures of the three men who were arrested in connection with the plot and identified them as Libyan national Mohammed Saeed Al-Dorsi, 25, and Iraqi nationals Mohsen al-Lussi, 34, and Abdel Karim Jumeili, 48.

The Libyan "is the person who was in charge of executing the suicide operation" while the two Iraqi nationals arrested with him "were providing logistical assistance to the terrorist network", the official said.

All three suspects have been referred to the state security court, a military tribunal that deals with conspiracy plots and terrorist-linked cases, the official added.

Four other suspects "participated in plotting and backing the criminal act and are in one of the neighbouring countries," the official said, without elaborating.

He identified them as Saudi national Turki Abdullah and three Iraqis named as Saad al-Obeidi, Saad al-Nuaimi and Yussef al-Obaidi.

According to the official Jordan foiled "several terrorist plots since the beginning of 2006" in the kingdom.

He did not give details but said that the authorities also seized during that time automatic rifles, explosives, rocket propelled-grenades which were brought into Jordan by "terrorist suspects from neighbouring countries".