Jordan foils chemical attack

2004-04-26 21:53

Amman - Jordan foiled a chemical attack linked to al-Qaeda against the intelligence services with trucks loaded with 20 tons of explosives that could have killed 80 000 people, security officials said on Monday.

Members of the network were arrested and the others killed, they said on state television, which showed pictures of the men who are on trial and a confession of the planned attack.

Footage of "chemicals that terrorists from al-Qaeda were trying to make explosives with" as well as "trucks that terrorists planned to load with 20 tons of chemical explosives in a suicide attack against the General Intelligence Department" was shown.

"This operation, which would have been the largest in the history of the kingdom in terms of its volume and number of victims, would have killed 80 000 Jordanian citizens," the report said.

Six members of the network were arrested and four others killed in a series of raids, the last of which took place April 20, security officials said.

"Terrorist Ahmed Fadel al-Khalayleh, nicknamed Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi, a prominent al-Qaeda leader, masterminded these operations," one of the officials said.

Zarqawi, a fugitive Islamist sentenced to death here earlier this month for the October 2002 killing of a US diplomat, "decided that the first target shall be the General Intelligence Department" and recruited the operatives.

The "leader" of the terrorist cell was identified as Azmi al-Jayussi, a Jordanian who was recruited in Iraq.

"Jayussi started to plan for the operation in Iraq where he had moved to from Afghanistan," the official said.

"He received direct orders from his leader Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi (to whom) Jayussi had pledged allegiance and absolute obedience since he met him in al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan," he added.

In a taped testimony Jayussi said he was trained in Herat, Afghanistan, "as one of Abu Mussab's followers" on the use of "explosives and strong poisons".

"Then I pledged allegiance to Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi to obey him without any questions and to be on his side," he added.

He said he met him again in Iraq and was introduced to another Jordanian follower of Zarqawi, Muwafaq Adwan, who was killed in a shootout with the Jordanian police in Amman on April 20.

"Abu Mussab ordered me to go to Jordan with Muwafaq. Our mission was to instigate military work in Jordan," he added.

In Jordan, a Syrian accomplice of Zarqawi, whom he identified as Haitham Omar Ibrahim, "arranged safe houses" for the pair who immediately got to work to collect information on the targets and chemicals for the attacks.

"We managed to buy large quantities ... We collected around 20 tons of chemicals, enough to carry out all the operations in Jordan," Jayussi said, adding that he then went ahead with building the bombs.

- SAPA