Al-Zarqawi linked to past attacks

JORDAN is the homeland of the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and has previously arrested scores of Islamic militants for plotting to carry out attacks in the moderate Arab kingdom.

US officials believe al-Zarqawi and Osama bin Laden’s operations chief Abu Zubaydah were chief organisers of a foiled plot to bomb the Radisson SAS around the millennium.

Abu Zubaydah was captured in March 2002 in Faisalabad, Pakistan, in a raid by the CIA, FBI and Pakistani authorities. Al-Zarqawi remains at large.

Jordan, a close US ally, has also sentenced numerous militants to death in absentia, including al-Zarqawi.

In August, Iraq’s al-Qaida wing claimed responsibility for a rocket attack that barely missed US warships docked in the Jordanian port of Aqaba.

The internet statement was signed Abu Maysara al-Iraqi, the spokesman for al-Qaida in Iraq.

That group is headed by al-Zarqawi, who has been blamed for a rash of kidnappings, the killing of scores of Iraqi civilians and attacks against US forces in Iraq.