Non-Subscriber Extract
Jordanian indictment reveals operations of Jund al-Shams terror network
- Article Tools
| 16 June 2003 |
By Alon Ben-David
In the indictment, filed to the Jordanian National Security Court and obtained by JTIC, there is no mention of Al-Qaeda involvement in the attack. However, the indictment reveals that Abu-Musab Al-Zarqawi, suspected by the USA of being the link between Al-Qaeda and the former Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein, had met the diplomat's assassins in Syria, where they were trained. It is the first evidence that Al-Zarqawi has operated out of Syria.
Foley, executive officer of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) in Jordan, was shot dead last year outside his home in a western Amman neighbourhood. The 60-year-old diplomat was about to enter his car when he was hit by a volley of bullets fired from close range. Soon after, Jordan and the USA charged Al-Qaeda with responsibility for the attack. In an audio recording released several weeks later, believed to be by Osama Bin Laden, the speaker mentioned Foley's murder among a list of other attacks committed by Al-Qaeda.
However, the indictment specifies Al-Zarqawi, as the key figure behind the attack. Al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian national, together with 10 other defendants - Libyans, Syrians and another Jordanian - are charged with the murder of Foley and with plotting to commit other attacks against US and Israeli targets in Jordan. Only five of the 11 suspects are in custody, among them Saad Salem Bin-Suawayed, a 40-year-old Libyan, suspected to have been the gunman.
According to the indictment, Al-Zarqawi visited Syria last year, where he met the operatives involved in the plot. They were trained in Syria, supplied with guns and grenades, and then returned to Jordan with instructions to locate a suitable target. Suawayed and his accomplices began searching the diplomatic neighbourhood of Amman for possible targets. By chance, they spotted Foley's diplomatic licensed car and followed it until he arrived at his home. The team waited outside the house until Foley emerged again and then shot him.
Saed Kheir, head of Jordanian General Intelligence, travelled to Damascus a few weeks after the attack, where intelligence sources believe he presented evidence that the assassins arrived from Syria and demanded the co-operation of the Syrian government. Syrian security services mounted an investigation and were able to present Kheir with the names of the suspects. Soon after, on 4 December 2002, four of the suspects were apprehended in Jordan. Last week, Jordanian authorities arrested the fifth suspect, Mohammed Dumos, charged with facilitating the illegal border crossing of the others from Syria and with obtaining the mini-van that was used in the attack.
The indictment does not attribute the attack to Al-Qaeda, and regional intelligence sources have pointed the finger at Al-Zarqawi's own independent faction, Jund al-Shams. "The Jordanians are experts when it comes to Al-Qaeda," a senior intelligence source told JTIC. "If they say it's not Al-Qaeda - then it isn't."
In recent months, Israeli intelligence agencies have ceased the use of the term `Al-Qaeda' and began referring to what they call `World Jihad' - "a series of dozens of small affiliated organisations that operate in different levels of co-operation", according to a senior intelligence source who spoke to JTIC. "Al-Zarqawi embodies the complexity of this matrix," the source added.
529 of 1,049 words