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DEBKAfile: Zarqawi threatens a general assault on Jordan.
DEBKAfile Exclusive: Zarqawi threatens a general assault on Jordan. Amman will become a second Baghdad – unless King Abdullah surrenders to his terms, including closure of the Israeli embassy

November 19, 2005, 8:57 PM (GMT+02:00)

Al Qaeda’s Iraq chief Abu Musab al Zarqawi is reported by DEBKAfile’s counter-terror sources to have confronted King Abdullah of Jordan with a five-point ultimatum to save his kingdom from a general offensive:

1. Jordan must expel forthwith all American and British military forces. DEBKAfile adds: several thousand US troops are based in the Hashemite kingdom, including special forces defending the Jordanian-Iraqi border from both sides. US air force personnel fly helicopter and fighter aircraft missions against terrorist targets in Iraq from Jordanian air bases. American troops in Iraq receive supplies from rear bases in the kingdom. US tankers regularly dock at Jordan’s Red Sea port of Aqaba with fuel supplies for the American army in Iraq. They are escorted by US warships. The British forces in Iraq are mostly Royal Air Force units.

2. Jordan must close the Israeli embassy in Amman.

3. The training of Iraqi police contingents in Jordan must cease. They are given courses at facilities especially set up in the kingdom. Jordanian instructors drill new Iraqi recruits.

4. Jordan must shut down prison facilities holding Iraqi inmates.

5. The Jordanian embassy in Baghdad must close and its staff withdrawn from Iraq. DEBKAfile’s sources add:

In the ongoing investigation of al Qaeda’s triple hotel attacks in Amman Nov. 9, which left 57 dead, Jordanian security services have found three local terror groups which act as Zarqawi’s surrogates:

Bayat al Imam: (The Imam’s Oath), an extremist group founded in 1994, many of whose members trained in Al Qaeda’s camps in Herat, W. Afghanistan.

Jundi al-Shem: This Jordanian group of terrorists is associated with the violent Ansar al-Islam which operates in the Kurdish regions of Iraq.

Brigades of Monotheists: Servants of the One God.

Jordanian, American and Israeli intelligence take Zarqawi’s threats of an offensive against the Hashemite kingdom with the utmost seriousness. They have detected initial signs of preparedness for action among the the arch-terrorist's sympathizers in Jordan.
Posted by: 3dc 2005-11-20
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=135485