Amman: Jordanian authorities Sunday claimed to have foiled an al-Qaeda terror plot in Kingdom, arresting 11 suspects alleged of affiliations with the terror network’s Iraq faction.
According to Jordon’s state media reports, the suspects planned to carry out suicide bombings in the capital Amman, targeting shopping malls, foreigners and diplomatic missions.
“The General Intelligence Department has foiled a terrorist plot against national security, by an 11-member terrorist group linked to Al-Qaeda’s ideology.”
The suspects were planning to launch a wave of attacks targeting shopping malls, diplomatic missions, foreigners, hotels and other key sites using explosives, car bombs, machineguns and mortars, the state news agency said.
They were arrested before they could carry out their plot, it said, adding that the intelligence services had been alerted and were monitoring the suspects’ moves.
Meanwhile, Information Minister Samih Maayatah told a news conference that the 11 suspects had entered Jordan from neighbouring Syria.
“The prisoners came across the border from Syria and were caught red-handed,” he said, adding that authorities seized weapons and maps showing the locations of the sites they planned to attack.
Key US ally Jordan is one of the safest countries in the conflict-riddled Middle East, but it too has seen its share of Al-Qaeda-linked violence.
In 2005, triple suicide bomb attacks at luxury hotels in the capital Amman killed 60 people.
Slain Al-Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi had claimed responsibility for planning those attacks. He had also been sentenced to death by a Jordanian court for the October 2002 murder of a US diplomat in Amman.
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