Jordan uncovers Al Qaeda plot to attack US troops

AMMAN - Jordan has arrested 17 militants linked to the al Qaeda network in Iraq and an affiliated Saudi group who were plotting to attack US military personnel in the kingdom, security sources said yesterday.

They said interrogations of the suspects revealed that six of them had ties to Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, head of the al Qaeda network in Iraq, while the others belonged to an underground Saudi group known as the Brigades of the Holy Shrines.

"They were planning attacks on foreign officers in the kingdom," said one security source, referring to a plot to attack US military personnel who frequent five-star hotels while on leave from duty in neighbouring Iraq.

The arrests came after an investigation that used informers to hunt Jordanian militants allied to Zarqawi who help recruit Arab militants to fight against US troops.

"The interrogations revealed their membership of these underground groups. They were recruiting terrorists for al Qaeda in Iraq and collecting donations for the organisation," said another security source.

Jordanian intelligence has stepped up its vigilance after receiving warnings of possible attacks against Western targets in the kingdom following the latest bomb attacks in London and the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.

Security sources say the militants are part of several Sunni fundamentalist underground cells that have been uncovered in recent months in Jordan.

Prosecutors were expected to issue a formal indictment against the militants, who come from the Sweileh neighbourhood of Amman, an impoverished Islamist stronghold, by the end of the month.

They will be charged with conspiracy to carry out terror attacks, which carries the death penalty.

- REUTERS