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Recent Appearances... Rantburg

Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Once representing hope, an EU mission in Gaza is symbol of sputtering Western vision
2023-07-07
[IsraelTimes] EUBAM unit was deployed to border crossing in preparation for Paleostinian independence, but two-state vision is increasingly losing out to notion of a single, shared entity

It’s been 16 years since the borders of the Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with an iron fist by Hamaswith about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response...
 Strip slammed shut after Hamas, the well-beloved offspring of the Moslem Brotherhood, seized control of the territory from Fatah.

The takeover forced the European Union
...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing...
 to withdraw monitors who had been deployed at a Gaza border crossing to help the Paleostinians prepare for independence. Yet the EU has regularly renewed funding for the unit since then, most recently late last month.

The continued existence of the unit known as EUBAM
... European Union Border Assistance Mission — they hang out at a bunch of borders in interesting places...
is an extreme example of the West’s willingness to keep pumping hundreds of millions of dollars a year into the moribund vision of a two-state solution between Israel and the Paleostinians.

Proponents say this approach remains the best chance for securing an eventual peace deal. Critics argue that opting for such costly conflict management helps keep the 56-year-old Israeli military control of other Paleostinian territories in place and allows Europa
...the land mass occupying the space between the English Channel and the Urals, also known as Moslem Lebensraum...
and the US to avoid making the hard political decisions needed to end the conflict.

This week’s Israeli military operation in the Jenin refugee camp, a West Bank terror stronghold, following numerous deadly attacks by Paleostinians from the area, and previous eruptions of violence also underscore the limits of international efforts to contain the conflict.

"The international community, in my view, understands the reality that the two-state solution is gone," said Marwan Muasher, a one-time Jordanian foreign minister and former ambassador to Israel. "It does not want to acknowledge this publicly, because acknowledging it publicly is going to have to force the international community to start talking about alternatives, all of them problematic."

Muasher, now a vice president at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, is unusual among his peers. The legions of diplomats and politicians who have devoted their careers to Mideast peacemaking remain committed to the two-state vision, even as the ground around them has shifted.

"I am still a believer," said Ehud Olmert, the former Israeli prime minister who led the last round of substantive peace talks with Paleostinian leaders before leaving office in 2009.

"There is no other solution. Everything else is almost inevitably a prescription for disaster," Olmert said.

The two-state approach has guided international diplomacy since the 1993 Oslo peace accords between Israel and the Paleostine Liberation Organization. The interim accords were meant to lay the groundwork for the establishment of a Paleostinian state alongside Israel.

Paleostinians seek the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, areas Israel captured in the 1967 Six Day War, for their state. The land between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River, made up of pre-1967 Israel and the other three area lands, is populated in roughly equal parts by Paleostinians and Israeli Jews. Pollsters predict an eventual Paleostinian majority because of higher birth rates.

Proponents of partition say it would create a democratic Israel with a clear Jewish majority in defined borders and enable Paleostinians to realize their national aspirations.

Without partition, the default is a reality in which a shrinking Israeli minority controls a growing Paleostinian majority with few political rights. Leading rights groups claim an apartheid system is already in place. Israel rejects any allegation of apartheid, saying its own Arab citizens enjoy equal rights, while its limitations on Paleostinians are a necessity born of the need to protect itself from violence. Israel also notes that it granted limited autonomy to the Paleostinian Authority at the height of the grinding of the peace processor in the 1990s and withdrew all its soldiers and settlers from Gaza in 2005.

Since the Oslo Accords 30 years ago, the US and EU have spent billions of dollars on development projects and direct aid to the Paleostinian Authority to promote the two-state vision. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell both pledged support for a partition deal.

Yet the West has little to show for its efforts. Peace initiatives led by successive US presidents were derailed by violence, Israeli settlement expansion and mutual distrust.

Hamas, shunned by the West as a terrorist group, has fought four wars against Israel and remains entrenched in Gaza. The Paleostinian Authority, which governs semi-autonomous enclaves in the West Bank, is weaker than ever. Israel’s hard-right government opposes Paleostinian independence and is racing to expand a settler population that has ballooned to over 700,000 people.

Preoccupied with the war in Ukraine and its rivalry with China, the Biden administration has done little more than condemn Israeli settlement plans and call for de-escalation.

Recent opinion polls show that only about one-third of Israelis and Paleostinians still favor a two-state solution.

Even some members of the Paleostinian Authority, which has the most to gain from independence, have begun to speak publicly about equal rights between the river and the sea, rather than two states.

"The basis for us is ending the occupation, obtaining freedom," said Mahmoud Aloul, an aide to Paleostinian Authority President the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas
...aka Abu Mazen, a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial. While no Yasser Arafat, he has his own brand of evil, just a little more lowercase....
. He said it does not matter if the conflict ends with two states or a single binational state for Israelis and Paleostinians.

In academic and human rights
...which are usually entirely different from personal liberty...
 circles, many now speak about a "one-state reality" — in which Israel wields overall control over Paleostinians. Muasher said given this environment, it is time for the world to focus on Paleostinian human rights instead of unrealistic peace plans.

Ines Abdel-Razek, executive director of the Paleostine Institute for Public Diplomacy, an advocacy group, said calls for a two-state solution are "comfortable" for the international community, but insincere.

She said that if the US were serious about peace, it would force Israel to reverse its settlement enterprise. Instead, she said, Washington gives Israel billions in military aid, allows settlement groups to raise funds in the US, engages with institutions promoting the annexation of the West Bank and pushes for normalization with other Arab countries.
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Africa North
Egypt is still not a coup in Washington
2013-07-20
US Secretary of State John Kerry has again refrained from characterising the ouster of Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi by the military as a coup.

Washington's hesitation to use the term has drawn accusations from the pro-Morsi camp that the US was complicit in the coup. For the White House, it is an on-going and agonising determination that has legal and possibly even security implications.

"This is obviously an extremely complex and difficult situation," said Mr Kerry, speaking in Amman during a news conference with his Jordanian counterpart Nasser Judeh.

"The fact is we need to take the time necessary because of the complexity of the situation to evaluate what has taken place," he said.

Mr Kerry, and other American officials, have repeatedly said it was important to take the time to determine what exactly had happened in Egypt - even while prominent US lawmakers like Senator John McCain, analysts, and supporters of Mr Morsi, have said it is clearly a coup.

Under US law, most aid must stop to "any country whose duly elected head of government is deposed by military coup d'etat or decree" or toppled in "a coup d'état or decree in which the military plays a decisive role".

The US provides $1.15bn (£756m) of aid a year to Egypt, $1.13bn of it military.

But the ''coup legislation" does not set a deadline, so the administration can use delaying tactics before reaching the legal determination, while it looks into the possibility of allowing aid to continue and hopes that the situation in Egypt improves rapidly.

Mr Kerry expressed concern about instability in Egypt and called for an end to political arrests but said it was too soon to judge how the situation would unfold.

In the build up to the ouster of Mr Morsi, the US was clearly uncomfortable with the prospect of a coup but failed to convince Mr Morsi to compromise with the opposition or push the military to find a different way forward. But Washington had never been comfortable with Mr Morsi as a president either, so it has now come around to accepting the new phase.

William Burns, deputy secretary of state, said on a visit to Cairo earlier this week: "Despite our concerns about the developments of the past two weeks, we believe that the on-going transition is another opportunity... to create a democratic state that protects human rights and the rule of law.

"We hope it will be a chance to learn some of the lessons and correct some of the mistakes of the past two years."

Although almost everyone in Washington agrees the administration of President Barack Obama should say it was a coup, opinions are divided about whether the US should suspend aid or find ways to maintain the flow.

Marwan Muasher, former Jordanian foreign minister and vice-president at the Carnegie Endowment for Peace overseeing Middle East studies, said: ''The US' best strategy now is to call it a coup, to respect US law, but to get a waiver, because it's not necessarily constructive to stop aid to Egypt."

There is no waiver in the ''coup legislation'' but Congress is looking into passing a bill that would allow aid to continue even if a legal determination is reached that Mr Morsi's ouster was a coup. Similar legislation was approved for Pakistan in 2001.
And we see how well that worked out...
"The US has been accused of interfering on this or that side, cutting off aid will further antagonise the Egyptians and will not result in any additional leverage for the US," said Muasher.

When Mr Morsi was in power, his opponents accused the US of being in bed with the Muslim Brotherhood, while American officials repeatedly explained they were simply trying to work with a president who had been democratically elected. Cutting off aid now would only confirm that impression in the anti-Morsi camp.

But Khalil el-Anani, a Durham University scholar who focuses on the Muslim Brotherhood, warned that the US' continued reluctance to describe the events as a coup would also fuel anger towards the US among supporters of the Brotherhood and the wider Middle East - the kind of anger that al-Qaeda would tap into. He urged the US to make aid conditional on progress towards democracy and respect for human rights, including an end to the rounding-up of members of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Washington is also concerned that cutting military aid to Egypt could undermine the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty. American military aid to Egypt started after the 1979 Camp David accords. Although nothing in the accords mandates the US to provide aid to Egypt, there is an expectation that as long as Egypt abides by the treaty, it can expect aid in return.

Under the Congress Appropriations Act of 2012, US military aid to Egypt was also made conditional on progress in the transition towards a civilian government and general respect for human rights. At the end of last year, Congress put a hold on aid to Egypt because of a clear deterioration in the political transition.

In May, Mr Kerry used a waiver included in the act to lift the restrictions, citing national security interests. These included the need to support Egypt as it increased security in the Sinai or helped secure transit through the Suez canal - among other goals directly tied to US national security - according to Mr Kerry.
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Home Front: Politix
U.S. 'Paid a Price' on Egypt
2011-10-05
In a blunt assessment, President Obama's first national security adviser told a private audience this week that there is a "chasm" between the United States and its Gulf Arab allies that has yet to heal since the White House very publicly ushered Egypt's president out of power in February.

Retired Marine Gen. James Jones, who served as national security adviser in 2009-10, told a private meeting at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce that the United States' Persian Gulf allies interpret the president's handling of the Egyptian revolution as a sign that Washington will dump their monarchies or governments if enough demonstrators take to their streets, according to a recording of the speech reviewed by The Daily Beast.

"We have paid a price," Jones said of the decision to call for Hosni Mubarak's ouster. "Our policy with regard to Mubarak as interpreted by some of our closest Arab allies in the Gulf has not gone over well."

"In their interpretation of our dumping President Mubarak very hastily, [it] answered the question of what we would be likely to do if that happened in their countries. So there is a chasm there that somehow has to be bridged," he added

In general, yes, there is that concern, certainly among the Gulf countries, that the United States does not stand by its friends in the region," said Marwan Muasher, a former foreign minister and deputy prime minister of Jordan. "In the case of the Saudis there is an additional point, which is a concern that the United States is not serious about the peace process."
Neither are the Saudis serious about the peace process, except as a cheap method to bring the territories currently controlled by those uppity Juices back under Muslim rule as Allah intended. But do go on...
Since the fall of Mubarak, the Saudis have begun to bolster Arab governments that have not fallen to the Arab spring. In July, Saudi Arabia announced a $1 billion grant for Jordan. Meanwhile, the Saudis have provided logistical and military support to the government of Bahrain, which has sought to suppress popular unrest. The Saudi kingdom, however, has not supported the regimes in Libya or Syria during the Arab Spring.

According to some Egyptian observers, the Saudis also have sought to bolster political parties in Cairo ahead of the upcoming elections in Egypt.

The United States has provided $60 million for democratic transition in Egypt since Mubarak's fall from power in February. Some of that money goes toward technical election training like platform writing, election law, and other programs aimed at building a democratic civil society.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said the United States will be prepared to meet with a number of political parties, including the Muslim Brotherhood. A U.S. official told The Daily Beast on Tuesday that a "handful" of members of the Muslim Brotherhood have "availed themselves of programs" funded by the United States for election training.
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Fifth Column
George Soros and the Muslim Brotherhood
2011-07-03
In a recent interview with prominent TV journalist Christiane Amanpour, who never misses an opportunity to promote repellent moral relativism about fundamentalist Islam, Middle East analyst Marwan Muasher declared, “The Muslim Brotherhood has been used for a long time as a scare tactic” (emphasis added). This eyebrow-raising dismissal of legitimate concerns about the world’s largest Islamist movement went unchallenged by Amanpour – no surprise there – although Muasher did weakly concede this: “that is not to say they don’t have designs.”

But there may be more in play here than simple fairness and wishful thinking on Muasher’s part. He happens to oversee research for the Middle East at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, funded by leftist multi-billionaire George Soros, one of the world’s most politically influential men. Soros is waging his own personal ideological war against America by shoveling seemingly limitless funds into organizations giving life to his “progressive” vision of social justice.

That vision, like the Muslim Brotherhood’s, identifies America and Israel as the “Great Satan” and “Little Satan” respectively, who must be demolished to pave the way for a purifying, redemptive utopia. These common enemies unite progressives and Islamic fundamentalists in what David Horowitz has coined an “unholy alliance.” As Andrew C. McCarthy writes in The Grand Jihad, “With their collectivist philosophy, transnational outlook, totalitarian demands, and revolutionary designs, Islamists are natural allies of the radical Left.”
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Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Jail sentences confirmed for Iraq rebel recruiters
2006-12-14
The State Security Court on Wednesday confirmed jail sentences against seven Jordanians accused of recruiting men to fight US forces in Iraq after an appeals court approved them. The suspects were handed reduced jail sentences in March and their lawyers appealed the verdict but the appeals court backed the decisions taken by the military tribunal, an AFP correspondent said.

In March, alleged ringleader Ziad Horani and co-defendant Khaled Sarqush each received five years of hard labour. Their sentences were reduced to four years to allow them to “improve themselves.” Four others were sentenced each to five years, with their terms reduced to three years for the same reason. The final defendant saw his sentence reduced to 20 months from three years and four months.

The suspects were indicted in July 2005 for “carrying out an activity not approved by the government, which jeopardised Jordan’s relations with another country,” namely neighbouring Iraq, court papers said. Defence lawyers initially demanded that former foreign minister Marwan Muasher testify as to whether the suspects had actually done anything to harm ties with Iraq, but finally dropped the demand. The suspects were specifically accused of recruiting fighters in Jordan and then sending them to neighbouring Syria to receive military training and then eventually infiltrate across the borders to Iraq.
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Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Jordanians' Feelings Mixed on Attacks
2005-11-21

Anger Over Iraq War Leads Some to Take Private Pleasure in Hotel Blasts

IRBID, Jordan -- Abu Ali, a solidly built man with a beard and permanent grease stains under his nails from his job as a truck mechanic, was pleased when he heard about the hotel bombings in his country. Speaking solemnly, looking around to see who might be listening to him, Abu Ali said he had been waiting for something like this to happen ever since his country allowed U.S. troops to assemble on Jordanian soil during the invasion of Iraq in 2003. The Nov. 9 suicide blasts in Amman that killed 60 people, most of them Jordanians, were justifiable payback, said Abu Ali, who lives in a small suburb of this ancient city near the Syrian border. He can muster little sympathy for the victims.
”Hey, they weren’t my relatives, so it must have been all right. Insh’alla and all that.”
"I feel frustrated, because I didn't expect this will happen because our country is basically secured," said Amani Omari, 40, a computer typist. The bombers "are not Islamists. They have no relationship with Islam. Islam doesn't encourage bombings or killings."
”No never. It’s all about baby ducklings and candy and bright shiny things 
 oooh, look, a puppy!”
Omari said Jordanians have not come out strongly against such terrorism in the past. Even now, she said, "there are specific cases that I sympathize with, but not all of them." Rafea Abdullah Dagehl, 48, a retired businessman, said motives did not matter to him. "They killed children," he said, pausing in a vegetable market. "The guy who did this, he's a criminal even if he's Muslim."
Whoa Nellie! Someone better call the Mutawa'een! This guy’s trash talkin’ Islam!
Jordan is a relatively moderate Islamic nation. Its wealthy elite in Amman are eager to embrace Western culture. The king, who was educated in the West, promotes democracy and has championed Muslims to stand together against extremism. After the bombings, Abdullah told Petra, the official news agency, that radical Muslims have "no place among us."
Except when they slip in and bomb the crap out of us or try to sink the occasional American warship.
But Jordan is also a country with a widening economic gap. Most Jordanians could not afford to spend the night in -- or even treat themselves to coffee and pastries in the lobby of -- one of the three hotels that was bombed. "We had one of those kinds of hotels in Irbid," Moussa said, as he drove around the city with a visitor. "They closed it. Nobody could afford to stay there."
It got to be so crowded, nobody went there anymore.
Moussa acknowledged that some of his anger came from his disdain at watching the rich get richer. And if the violence ravaging Iraq has found its way across the border, Moussa said, he can only blame his government. "They don't care about the people," he said, waving his hand in a dismissive gesture at a banner of the king flying near an intersection. Waleed Khatib, director of the Irbid office of the Islamic Action Front, a coalition of political parties in Jordan, said he did not sense any sympathy among Muslims in Jordan for those who target civilians.
Sounds good.
"We sympathize with any group if it's legitimate resistance against the enemy, if it's in the name of God," he said.
Oops, sounds bad.
Khatib said he supported groups that "fight against the occupation in Iraq. I sympathize with it.
Still sounds bad.
But targeting civilians, we are against it."
Okay, sounds good. Unless Shiites are the enemy, then it sounds bad.
The complexity of the issue is evident in the tale of Mohammad Hikmet and his friend Talal Badran. The last time Hikmet saw his friend they had stood up with several other foreign fighters "as one man," facing down American troops at the Baghdad airport in April 2003. By his account, which could not be verified independently, Hikmet took off running toward a building, as the men had planned. He did not look back, and he never saw his friend again. Badran's older brother, named Adnan Badran, speaking in Irbid, said he presumed Talal was dead. Adnan said Talal, bedeviled by drugs and alcohol, went to Iraq to make himself right with God, a decision Adnan supported and kept from relatives until Talal left with money borrowed from him.

"He will be a martyr if he fought for the sake of God," Adnan Badran said. "But if I know he is bombing against civilians in Amman or Iraq, I will accept him only as a criminal. He will be outside . . . Islam." Hikmet, who returned to Jordan after spending a few weeks in Iraq, said he was shocked by the bombings in Amman. "I can't believe it," he said in a coffee shop in Irbid. "As long as you are Muslim and young and you know the true face of Islam, why would you bomb people who are innocent?
Yeah, that question’s on a lot of peoples' minds these days.
Even if they are from different religions, different areas, why would we kill them?"
From what has been seen, it’s because they are from different religions or different areas. Such a mystery this is.
Asked if he would go back to Iraq to fight if he could, Hikmet nodded his head. "Yes, of course," he said.
”But only to kill those of different religions from different areas.
Abu Ali said he has shared his feelings only with his friend Moussa, a human resources manager who lives with his new bride in Irbid. "He knew he could talk to me," Moussa recounted as the two men stood outside the auto shop where Abu Ali works. "We have the same opinions." Fearful of retaliation from the Jordanian intelligence service, the men agreed to talk to a reporter only if their full names were not used and the village where they grew up was not named. Their view of the bombings reflects lingering anger here over the war in Iraq and belies the images of Jordanians united under their flag after the suicide bombings. Although King Abdullah criticized the U.S. invasion, many Jordanians saw the hosting of U.S. soldiers as tacit approval. An unknown number of Jordanians crossed through Syria and into Iraq to help fight the Americans.
Despite the fact that Americans were stopping the slaughter of Muslims.
In the days following the Amman blasts, the Jordanian government has acknowledged that its citizens largely view the insurgency in Iraq as an Iraqi problem created by the U.S. invasion.
Saddam had nothing to do with it.
Officials say they hope the bombings served as a wake-up call for many Jordanians.
That’s an awfully loud wake-up call! Can’t they just phone your room sometime before eight o’clock in the morning?
At a recent news conference, Prime Minister Adnan Badran said the government was starting a campaign aimed at schools, mosques and the news media "to prevent our children and youth from being brainwashed" by Islamic extremists, whom he called the "enemy within." "We are all eyes for this homeland," he said. "The time has come to build social education that resists this culture. What we need is social reform."
Ummmmm, no. That would be “religious reform,” not "social reform". But thank you for playing, please try again.
Deputy Prime Minister Marwan Muasher, the government's spokesman, estimated that 60 percent of Jordanians consider the al Qaeda network to be legitimate.
Well, that explains a lot now, doesn't it?
"There must be zero tolerance toward such heinous acts," Muasher said. "A clear line must be defined between resistance and the killing of innocent people."
Too bad the line was drawn with invisible ink.
But men such as Abu Ali and Moussa say they see no distinction.
No kidding?
To each other, they declare support for Abu Musab Zarqawi, the Jordanian whose al Qaeda in Iraq organization asserted responsibility for the attacks in Amman on the Radisson SAS, Grand Hyatt and Days Inn, all Western hotel chains. "Our government shouldn't have anything to do with Iraq," said Abu Ali, 39. "Just leave us alone and it will keep us in peace. "This was a message from Zarqawi and his guys: The Americans should leave Iraq. As long as they stay, it's legitimate to hit them anywhere.
No matter who it kills or in what number.
The innocent people who died, they are the casualties of war." It is hard to say how widespread such feelings are.
But you’ll report them anyway because they sound so good to the appeasers.
When asked about the Amman bombings, nearly a dozen people interviewed on the streets of Irbid condemned the attacks. But most were also quick to criticize the Americans for removing Saddam Hussein from power and for leaving U.S. troops in Iraq.
”They should have removed Saddam and let us return to our usual civil war!
And, they said, they fear more attacks in Jordan as a result of violence in Iraq.
It’s all Iraq’s fault, silly apostaic Shiites! Jihadists have nothing to do with it.
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Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Some in Jordan doubt televised confession
2005-11-14
The televised confession of an Iraqi woman — accused of being the fourth would-be suicide attacker — set Jordanians buzzing Monday, with some expressing joy over her capture and others venting anger over her deadly plans.

Still others questioned if she was really involved in the bomb plot that killed 57 people in Wednesday's attacks on the Radisson SAS, Grand Hyatt and Days Inn hotels.

Sajida Mubarak Atrous al-Rishawi went from rural Iraqi obscurity to global notoriety overnight after her confession was aired Sunday in a broadcast beamed not just across Jordan, but throughout the Middle East and beyond.

"I sat there watching and couldn't understand how she could be speaking so coldly," said Adel Fathi, 29. Three of his relatives were killed in the Radisson wedding party reception that was bombed by al-Rishawi's husband. "What are these people made of?" asked Fathi, who closed his women's accessories shop early and joined millions of others who watched the confession.

Al-Rishawi, from the militant hotbed of Ramadi and the sister of a slain lieutenant of Jordanian-born militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, was arrested Sunday.

CBS News correspondent David Hawkins reports al Qaeda in Iraq tripped up when it claimed responsibility for the Amman bombing and said it sent four suicide bombers including a husband and wife team. Since only three suicide bombers bodies were found, it tipped off authorities to hunt for the fourth.

"My husband detonated (his bomb) and I tried to explode (mine) but it wouldn't," al-Rishawi said during the three-minute televised segment. She appeared anxious and wore a white headscarf. "People fled running and I left running with them." Al-Rishawi was made to display the clothing she wore into the party in which at least 25 people were killed by her husband, Ali Hussein Ali al-Shamari, also 35.

In a separate development, American forces detained and later released an Iraqi with the same name as one of the hotel suicide attackers, the U.S. military said Monday. Jordanian authorities said Safaa Mohammed Ali, 23, was among the suicide attackers who struck last Wednesday. A statement by the U.S. command said someone by that name was detained in November 2004 in connection with the American assault on the insurgent stronghold of Fallujah. The command said it could not confirm whether the person detained was the same man who took part in the Amman attack.

"He was detained locally at the division detention facility" but was released two weeks later because there was no "compelling evidence to continue to hold him" as a "threat to the security of Iraq."

Al-Rishawi's wasn't the first televised confession by terror suspects detained by Jordanian police. In April 2004, at least four Jordanian and Syrian militants linked to al-Zarqawi detailed their plot to launch chemical bomb attacks in Amman, particularly against the General Intelligence Department. In her television appearance, al-Rishawi opened her dark fur-collared body-length overcoat to reveal two crude explosives belts — one packed with RDX and the other ball-bearings. They were strapped to her waist front and back with a thick binding of silver tape. "It was scary to see her with her bomb but at least we know who she is and she can be punished," said Anwar Nazih, a 15-year-old schoolgirl.

Many Jordanians, however, expressed doubt al-Rishawi's confession was real or that she was even involved in the plot. "I don't buy it. There are many contradictions, and it just doesn't make sense," said Mohammed al-Fakhiri, a 33-year-old mobile telephone shop owner in the Jordanian, capital, Amman. "The first thing she would have done is get rid of her explosive belt," al-Fakhiri said. "So how come she was caught with it."
'cause she didn't have time to do the first thing.
He also said al-Rishawi claimed that her husband had detonated his explosives apparently before she fled. "So how come she wasn't wounded?"
You can't have everything.
Jordanian Deputy Premier Marwan Muasher told reporters Sunday that her husband noticed she was having problems detonating her bomb and pushed her out of the wedding ballroom before blowing himself up. Al-Rishawi said her husband exploded his belt and she couldn't detonate hers. But it wasn't clear from her comments whether her husband blew himself up before her bomb malfunctioned of after.

Responding to a TV interviewer's questions, the meek-looking al-Rishawi said her husband made all the arrangements for the plot. He drove both of them and two other men — apparently bombers Rawad Jassem Mohammed Abed and Safaa Mohammed Ali, both 23 — to Amman. He also fitted her with the belt and ordered a taxi to take them to the Radisson. "Her weak soul, her entourage and her husband made her carry out this horrible act because usually women are more sensitive toward such acts," said 33-year-old pharmacist Salma al-Qusous. "But believe me, I felt disgusted (watching the confession) and this heartless woman deserves the harshest punishment," al-Qusous said.
There's a reasonable man.
Investigators are still interrogating al-Rishawi, who officials believe may provide a key link to al Qaeda in Iraq leader al-Zarqawi and provide insights into the terror group's operations. But questioning was slow, apparently because she still suffered from the shock of the attacks and her subsequent arrest, a security official said Monday.

Authorities believe more people helped arrange the attacks, but it was unclear if they were among 12 suspects arrested in connection with the bombings.
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Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Bomber's wife arrested in Jordan; 4th plotter
2005-11-13
Police have arrested a woman suspected of having wanted to blow herself up in a series of suicide bombings in Jordan, King Abdullah has said. Police say the Iraqi woman is the wife of one of three Iraqi male suicide bombers who attacked three hotels in Amman on Wednesday, killing 57 people. Deputy Prime Minister Marwan Muasher said she was also the sister of a key aide to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Zarqawi's al-Qaeda in Iraq group has claimed responsibility for the attacks. The three Iraqi bombers, who died in the attacks, were identified as Ali Hussein Ali al-Shamari, from Anbar province, Rawad Jassem Mohammed Abed, 23, and Safaa Mohammed Ali, 23. The woman was identified as Sajida Mubarak Atrous al-Rishawi, 35, and she was married to al-Shamari.

Speaking at a press conference, Mr Muasher showed reporters photographs of a suicide bomb belt packed with ball bearings that she was said to have been wearing at the time of the attacks. He said she would make a statement on Jordanian television later in the day.
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Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Failed suicide bomber captured in Jordan
2005-11-13
Security forces in Jordan have detained what authorities believe is a would-be fourth suicide bomber, a woman, King Abdullah II announced.

The woman's explosives apparently failed to detonate, he said on Sunday. She apparently wore an explosive belt, along with her husband, another bomber, to the Radisson in Amman.

But after her explosives failed to detonate, said Deputy Prime Minister Marwan Muasher, her husband asked her to leave before detonating his own.

Sixty-seven people were killed in the blasts at the Radisson, the Grand Hyatt and the Days Inn on Wednesday, and more than 90 were wounded.

Abdullah was speaking the day after he vowed to back a crackdown on al Qaeda after confirmed that four people from the terror group carried out the Amman hotel attacks -- three suicide bombers and the wife of one of the attackers.

But in an interview with CNN, the monarch stopped short of pledging unilateral action against the terror group al Qaeda in Iraq, which is led by Jordanian-born Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

"Obviously we are going to crack down and take the fight to Zarqawi, but this is part of our coalition ... against this ... threat," he said.

Al Qaeda in Iraq claimed responsibility for Wednesday's attack, which killed 57 people, plus the three bombers.

In an Internet statement, the terrorist group said three suicide bombers and the wife of one of the attackers were involved in the bombings.

While the statement cannot be independently confirmed, King Abdullah said "initial findings" indicate that they were all Iraqis.

The king expressed particular scorn for the husband and wife team.

"To see a wedding procession and to take your wife or your spouse with you into that wedding and blow yourself up -- these people are insane," he said.

The attack on the wedding party at the Radisson Hotel resulted in the heaviest loss of life, including 38 friends and family of the bride and groom.

The Web site posting from al Qaeda in Iraq said the husband and wife were responsible for the Days Inn blast.

King Abdullah said that while Zarqawi "has been targeting Jordan for quite awhile," Wednesday's attack -- the deadliest in Jordan's history -- showed a new strategy for the Jordanian-born terror leader.

"We have been very successful on a regular basis in being able to take his groups across because he has used Jordanians," the king said. "Now he has changed tactics.

"He is using foreigners. That means that our security forces have to change tactics, also."

He said it was possible the attackers slipped into Jordan from Iraq or Syria, accused by the United States of allowing terrorists to cross into Iraq. Security officials later said they believed the attackers crossed the Iraqi border.

King Abdullah said he has spoken to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad about securing the border to prevent terrorists "that have been creating instability here."

"He has assured me on many occasions that he will take this up and give it his utmost attention, and I hope that he will continue to do that," the king said.

When asked if Assad had followed up his words with actions, the monarch said, "Well, we still have had problems across our borders."

Jordanian authorities offered some insight Saturday into the ongoing investigation of Wednesday's bombings.

The bombers came across the Iraqi border three days before the Wednesday attacks and rented a house. A forensic examination of the house is under way to determine if it is commonly used a safe house for bombers, authorities said.

Authorities retrieved nothing useful from the security cameras in the hotels or from the wedding photographer at the Radisson.

As for the suicide belts, they were made outside of Jordan. But the detonators were connected to the belts shortly before the bombings, presumably in Jordan. The belts contained a "rapid detonation explosive," security officials said, and the detonators were fashioned from hand grenade detonators.

The explosives and detonators were of Yugoslavian origin, authorities said, and are readily available in Iraq.

The investigation suggests that al-Zarqawi was frustrated that Jordan had been able to thwart 15 plots since April 2004, so al Qaeda's Iraq leader shifted his focus to soft targets to demonstrate he was "still alive and kicking" in his native Jordan, officials said.

This same rationale prompted al-Zarqawi to recruit non-Jordanians in an effort to prevent Jordan's intelligence officials from uncovering plots against soft targets. Fourteen people have been arrested in connection with the bombings, all of them non-Jordanians.

Jordan police have yet to make the bombers' identities public, but may do so Sunday.
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Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Jordan Authorities interrogate 12 suspects
2005-11-12
Security forces have arrested scores of suspects believed to be connected with Wednesday's suicide bombings that were claimed by Al Qaeda in Iraq, informed sources said Friday. “There were ongoing arrests and we will not hesitate to interrogate any suspected individual,” said a security official. The official refused to state the exact number of arrested suspects or their nationality, but did not deny that those who were rounded up were more than 150.

The Associated Press reported Friday 120 arrests, mainly Iraqis and Jordanians. But in his press conference, Deputy Prime Minister Marwan Muasher confirmed 12 arrests and did not elaborate on their nationalities. However, the security official, who noted that the number of those detained kept changing because many have been released after questioning, said the arrests included Iraqi nationals. Al Qaeda said Friday that four Iraqis, including a husband and wife, carried out the suicide bombings against the Grand Hyatt, Radisson SAS and Days Inn hotels, killing 57 people and injuring 96. The death toll of the three suicide bombings rose to 57 after Hollywood film director Mustafa Akkad died of sustained injuries early Friday.

In a statement posted on the Internet, Al Qaeda in Iraq, led by fugitive Abu Mussab Zarqawi, said the group charged with planning and implementing the attacks was made up of three men identified as “commanders Abu Khabib, Abu Muath and Abu Omaira.” The fourth perpetrator was identified as “the venerable sister Um Omaira. Um Omaira chose to follow her husband Abu Omaira on the path of martyrdom.” Muasher said Al Qaeda was still the prime suspect, adding that the attacks were carried out according to the group's pattern. “But I cannot confirm that until the results of the investigations are out,” he said.

Muasher told a press conference that forensic experts were still examining evidence as well as conducting DNA tests on the remains of the three men believed to be the bombers. He added that investigators had not found evidence to indicate that there was a fourth bomber, saying police were examining security videos from cameras in the hotels. Agence France-Presse quoted a hospital source as saying that the head of a woman believed to be a suicide bomber had been found among the remains of victims at one hotel. “We received a woman's head and mangled body remains,” the source told AFP. “This usually is the case when you are dealing with a suicide, the body is ripped apart and often the head is intact.”

But according to Momen Hadidi, the chief of staff of Forensic Medicine and head of the investigation team of autopsies, the decapitated head was that of a 15-year- old girl who has already been identified and buried by her family. Hadidi said the girl was decapitated because she was standing close to the suicide bomber. He added that his team of forensic experts were thoroughly examining the dismembered body parts of those who were blown up by the explosions and were carrying out chemistry and biology tests. “We are very close to identifying all the dismembered people,” he said, adding that descriptive indicators of the parts of the suicide bombers so far revealed that they were males. “We are waiting for the tests results to come up to be sure,” Hadidi added.

Eyewitnesses and employees of both the Grand Hyatt and Days Inn hotels said they spoke to the bombers, who had an Iraqi accent. A Grand Hyatt staffer said he saw a suspicious looking man nervously pacing back-and-forth and that he asked him if he was looking for someone, only to be answered that he was meeting friends. He said the bomber, who had an Iraqi accent, sat down at one of the tables at the piano lounge and five minutes later blew himself up.

Days Inn Manager Khalid Abu Ghosh said his staff had asked a suspicious man in his mid-20s to leave the hotel coffee shop because he was acting weird and fumbling with his jacket, in what appeared to be an attempt to detonate himself. The hotel employees escorted the man outside the hotel, after which he blew himself up.

“It was agreed to use suicide belts for precision and to cause maximum damage,” said Al Qaeda statement signed in the name of the group's spokesman, Abu Maysara Al Iraqi. Thirty-three Jordanians and at least 12 foreigners were reported to have been killed in the blasts. Several bodies have not yet been identified. Iraqi Deputy Interior Minister Maj. Gen. Ali Ghalib told AP that it was possible that Amman hotel bombers came from Iraq. “The attack looks like it was an act carried by Al Qaeda and Al Zarqawi or those around him,” Ghalib said. “Whether they are Iraqis or not, we are not sure. But it is not impossible,” he added. He noted that the number of Iraqis carrying out suicide attacks has increased in recent months, saying “that is why we cannot deny or confirm” if the hotel assailants were Iraqis.

Muasher told reporters Friday that authorities have banned traffic and individuals from crossing to Iraq via the Karameh land borders. “All land borders are open, except for Al Karameh,” he said. Immediately after the bombings authorities closed its land borders with Iraq, Israel and the West Bank, Syria and Saudi Arabia. The borders were reopened the second day. Although initial reports indicate that the perpetrators were Iraqis, Muasher said he did not expect a backlash against Iraqis in the Kingdom. “The attackers do not represent the views of all Iraqis. They are terrorists and barbarians who do not belong to any identity,” Muasher said.
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Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Jordanians declare war on Zarqawi, tell him to burn in hell
2005-11-10
Hundreds of angry Jordanians rallied Thursday outside one of three U.S.-based hotels attacked by suicide bombers, shouting, “Burn in hell, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi!” — a reference to the leader of Al-Qaida in Iraq, the terrorist group tied to the blasts that killed at least 56 people.

The protest was organized by Jordan’s 14 professional and trade unions — made up of both hard-line Islamic groups and leftist political organizations — traditionally vocal critics of King Abdullah II’s moderate and pro-Western policies. Drivers honked the horns of vehicles decorated with Jordanian flags and posters of the king. A helicopter hovered overhead. “We sacrifice our lives for you, Amman!” the protesters chanted.

Other rallies were held across the kingdom, including the Red Sea port of Aqaba, where attackers using Katyusha rockets narrowly missed a U.S. ship and killed a Jordanian soldier in August. Others were in al-Zarqawi’s hometown of Zarqa and the southern city of Maan, which is a known hub for Muslim fundamentalists. Palestinian legislator Hanan Ashrawi said she did not believe al-Qaida “or any of these violent extremists have had support among mainstream Arab opinion at all. Now they are making sure they are turning everyone against them.”
That's our boy Zarq, winning friends and influencing people
A Jordanian security official who spoke on condition of anonymity said authorities had tips on suspects who are being hunted, including possible sleeper cells or individuals who may have assisted the attackers and later fled in a vehicle bearing Iraqi license plates. Police continued a broad security lockdown and authorities sent DNA samples for testing to identify the attackers. Land borders were reopened after being closed for nearly 12 hours.

A government spokesman lowered the death toll by one, citing confusion in the early hours after the blasts. He said the number was likely to rise slightly. He said the victims included 15 Jordanians, five Iraqis, one Saudi, one Palestinian, three Chinese, one Indonesian; 30 others hadn’t been identified. A U.S. Embassy official said at least one American was killed and at least two others were wounded. Schools, businesses and government offices closed as the stunned kingdom prepared to bury the dead.

Earlier Thursday, a posting on a militant Islamic Web site attributed the bombings to Al-Qaida in Iraq, saying that Jordan became a target because it was “a backyard garden for the enemies of the religion, Jews and crusaders ... a filthy place for the traitors ... and a center for prostitution.”The authenticity of the posting could not be independently verified, but it appeared on an Islamic Web site that acts as a clearing house for statements by militant groups. A separate posting said Al-Qaida in Iraq was also behind a Baghdad bombing Thursday that killed at least 33 people.

The nearly simultaneous attacks late Wednesday also wounded more than 115 people, police said. Police detained several people overnight, although it was unclear if they were of suspects or witnesses.

The date of Wednesday’s attack, Nov. 9, would be written as 9/11 in the Middle East, which puts the day before the month. A Jordanian government spokesman declined to speculate on its meaning. But Jordanians were sending text messages that read: “Have you noticed that today is 9-11, similar to America’s 11-9?”

Iraqi government spokesman Laith Kubba said the attack should alert Jordan that it needed to stop playing host to former members of Saddam Hussein’s regime. “I hope that these attacks will wake up the ‘Jordanian street’ to end their sympathy with Saddam’s remnants ... who exploit the freedom in this country to have a safe shelter to plot their criminal acts against Iraqis,” he said. He also said Iraqis may have had a hand in the attacks. “The al-Qaida organization has become as a plague that affected Iraq and is now transmitted by the same rats to other countries. A lot of Iraqis, especially former intelligence and army officers, joined this criminal cell,” Kubba said. Jordan’s Deputy Prime Minister Marwan Muasher said shortly after the blasts that al-Zarqawi was a “prime suspect.”

The Jordanian-born al-Zarqawi is known for his animosity to the country’s Hashemite monarchy. The claim of responsibility did not name King Abdullah II but twice referred to the “tyrant of Jordan.”

In the attacks, the suicide bombers detonated explosives at the Grand Hyatt, Radisson SAS and Days Inn hotels just before 9 p.m. The Radisson bombing took place inside a hall where 300 guests were celebrating a wedding of two Palestinians. A smaller wedding was going on at the Hyatt. Initial reports said a car filled with explosives was also found in the parking garage at the Le Meridian hotel, but officials on Thursday said that had not been the case.

The suicide bomber at the Grand Hyatt was possibly Iraqi, a Jordanian security official said on condition of anonymity. He said the middle-aged man, who had explosives under his suit, was stopped by suspicious security officials in the lobby. Speaking in an Iraqi accent, the man said he was “looking around,” and then blew himself up, the official added, saying hotel cameras had some shots of him.

Until late Wednesday, Amman — a comfortable, hilly city of white stone villas and glitzy high-rises — had mostly avoided large-scale attacks and was a welcome sanctuary of stability in a troubled region. Al-Zarqawi was jailed in Jordan for 15 years in 1996, but was freed three years later under an amnesty by King Abdullah, the current king’s father. The Jordanian security source said DNA tests were being carried out to determine the identity of the perpetrators, including two suicide bombers who blew themselves up in two of the separate hotel attacks. A third suicide attacker used a car to attack.

The dead included two senior Palestinian security officials. Maj. Gen. Bashir Nafeh and Col. Abed Allun were killed in the attack at the Hyatt, the Palestinian envoy to Amman, Ambassador Attala Kheri, told The AP. Israel’s Foreign Ministry confirmed that an Israeli was killed in the bombings, but had no other details. The Army Radio said that the man was living at one of the hotels, but declined to say which.

The state Jordan Television showed Abdullah inspecting the sites of the blasts after returning home early Thursday, cutting short an official visit to Kazakhstan. He later presided over a meeting of his security chiefs, including police and intelligence. Jordan is one of two Arab countries that have signed peace treaties with Israel. It helped the United States in the war on Iraq. The hotels, frequented by Israelis and Americans among other foreign guests, have long been on al-Qaida’s hit list.

Iraq’s interior minister said last month that documents found with a slain al-Zarqawi aide revealed a plan to send some foreign militants home to widen the battlefield beyond Iraq. “So you will see insurgencies in other countries,” Bayan Jabor told Reuters, adding that hundreds of Islamist fighters had left Iraq in recent months.
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Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Hand of Zarqawi seen in Amman bombings
2005-11-10
Three almost simultaneous attacks Wednesday on hotels managed by American companies in Jordan's capital carried the classic markings of terrorist hits by Al Qaeda, or its imitators. The bombings also shattered the long string of foiled plots by Jordan - a close Middle Eastern ally of the United States.

Shortly before 9 p.m local time on Wednesday, the Grand Hyatt, Radisson, and Days Inn hotels, all in the center of Amman, were hit by what the Jordanian police said were likely suicide bombers, leaving at least 57 dead and more than 300 wounded.

Jordan shares borders with both Saudi Arabia and Iraq, and is the native land of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the most wanted terrorist inside Iraq. Mr. Zarqawi, who spent time in Jordanian jails in the 1980s, has sought to strike at Jordanian targets in the past. Jordanian officials allege he was involved in a foiled New Year's Eve, 2000 attack that targeted the Radisson hotel and several tourist sites in Jordan.

Jordan's Deputy Prime Minister Marwan Muasher said in a CNN interview that Zarqawi was the country's "prime suspect."

Hundreds of militants from the country have poured into Iraq to fight alongside Zarqawi during the past two years, and security officials have long worried that militants - energized by the jihad in Iraq and with new skills - would come home to wreak havoc in the tiny kingdom.

The first known terrorist attack to have been carried out involving veterans of the Iraq jihad was in August of this year, when three rockets were fired at a US warship from Jordan's Red Sea port of Aqaba. The rockets missed their target and hit the Israeli port of Eliat. Jordan says militants operating out of Iraq were behind the attack, and Zarqawi's group later claimed responsibility.

"The Jordanians have been quite effective, their intelligence services are considered among the better in the region. Remember they've foiled a number of plots by Zarqawi's band,'' says Ralph Peters, a retired US Army intelligence officer who specialized in Islamic terrorist groups.

"But the terrorists are so determined. And the fact that the Jordanians are good could have pushed them all the farther underground, to lay low to take action like this. "

Mr. Peters says a successful attack in Jordan isn't as surprising as the fact it was so long in coming. He says Jordan is such a "crossroads" of Arab and Palestinian groups and populations that "you kind of expect that sooner or later someone decides to get tough or make some point."

If, as seems likely, the attack was carried out by Islamist militants, it will not be the first such attack in Jordan. US diplomat Lawrence Foley was gunned down in Amman in December 2002 in assassination that Jordan officials say was carried out by Al Qaeda and included the involvement of Zarqawi.

In April 2004, two Jordanians confessed on Jordanian television of plotting bomb and poison gas attacks on the US Embassy, the Jordanian prime minister's office, the Jordanian intelligence service, and other diplomatic missions. One of the Jordanians said he had met with Zarqawi in Iraq to plan the attack. He said Zarqawi gave him $170,000 to finance the operation, and that he used it to buy 20 tons of chemicals.

The country has long been a target of Islamist militants, particularly because of its close ties to the US and its peace deal with Israel.

"Jordan is clearly our longest, best, and most effective partner in the war on terror and it has been since the black September in 1970 when the Palestinian movement almost took over the kingdom," says John MacGaffin, the former associate deputy director for operations at CIA and a former senior adviser to the FBI. "If you ask bin Laden or anyone if Americans are the evil people in this existential battle, and ask who are the Americans' closest supporters in this battle, then it's clearly the Jordanians. And they happen to be Islamic, which makes it a whole lot worse."

President Bush condemned the bombings and offered US assistance in the investigation. "Jordan is a close friend of the United States, and we will offer every possible form of cooperation in investigating these attacks and assisting in efforts to bring these terrorists to justice," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said in a statement.
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