 |
|
Sources: Jordan royal family targeted
10/06/2001
By JAMAL HALABY AMMAN, Jordan — The Jordanian royal family interrupted a vacation on a yacht
last year after receiving information that terrorists planned to attack the
boat, official sources said Saturday. Secret service agents said the plot was linked to Osama bin Laden's
organization, the sources said, without giving any details. Terrorists planned to kill King Abdullah II and his family as they vacationed
on a yacht sailing in the Mediterranean off a European country, the sources told
The Associated Press. They stipulated they could be identified only as
``official sources.'' Abdullah was accompanied by his pregnant wife, Queen Rania, and their two
children — Hussein, then 6, and Iman, then 4, the sources said. Queen Rania gave
birth to a baby girl, Princess Salma, on Sept. 26, 2000. The sources refused to provide an exact date or say exactly where the yacht
was, but said the king returned to Jordan aboard a royal jet that was dispatched
from Amman to the nearest airport. They declined to discuss details of how Jordanian officials learned of the
plot or why it was revealed now. They said, however, that Jordan had
substantiated information on the plot and details on the terrorist plan. The sources said one or more suicide attackers aboard a motorboat filled with
explosives planned to slam into the king's yacht — much like the attack that
wrecked the USS Cole and killed 17 American sailors in Yemen last October.
The Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, quoting unidentified intelligence
sources in Jordan, published a similar account Saturday. U.S. officials suspect bin Laden as the mastermind of the Cole bombing and he
is the prime suspect in the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington. Jordan has been the target of several terrorist plots because of its
pro-Western leanings, its close ties to the United States and its 1994 peace
treaty with Israel. Abdullah's father, King Hussein, who died of cancer in February 1999, was the
target of several assassination attempts. Communists and pan-Arab nationalists
had targeted Hussein since the beginning of his rule in 1952, firing rockets at
his royal jet, putting acid in his nose drops and poison in his food.
In September 1970, Yasser Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organization
threatened the Jordanian monarchy with its growing influence among the
predominantly Palestinian population. That prompted a civil war that forced the
PLO out of Jordan. In the 1980s, hardline Arab governments, like those in Syria and Libya,
ostracized Jordan because of Hussein's quest for peace and coexistence with the
Israelis. Abdullah inherited the bumpy path. Just nine months on the throne, his
security agents foiled what would have been the worst terrorist attack in
Jordan's history. A group of 28 Arab men allegedly conspired to attack U.S. and
Israeli targets during millennium celebrations in Jordan in a plot that military
prosecutors blamed on bin Laden. Prime Minister Ali Abu-Ragheb announced Friday that authorities were
interrogating people affiliated with bin Laden who had been rounded up after the
Sept. 11 attacks in the United States. He declined to provide any details.
Associated Press Writer