BEIRUT, Lebanon, 12 November 2005 — For decades, Jordan’s leaders kept peace in their small kingdom by making a deal with those who ruled their much larger and more powerful neighbor, Iraq.
That strategy meant Jordan remained allied with Saddam Hussein’s regime even as much of the world abandoned it when Saddam invaded Kuwait in 1990. But the Jordanians always hedged their bets. While they helped Saddam evade UN sanctions in exchange for millions of dollars in free Iraqi oil, the Jordanians also allowed Iraqi exiles to operate freely.
When Saddam’s regime was ousted by a US-led invasion in 2003, Jordan quickly shifted gears and allied itself with Iraq’s new rulers. Jordan became a center for training new Iraqi police and the host to countless reconstruction conferences. But the government also allowed thousands of Iraqi Baathists to settle in its capital, Amman. More ominously, some Iraqis say, the Jordanians turned a blind eye to Islamic militants crossing the border to fight against US and Iraqi forces.
That tightrope, which the Jordanians have walked for so long, became untenable Wednesday night, when suicide bombers attacked three Western hotels in Amman, killing at least 59 people. It would seem that Jordan’s ruling Hashemite clan can no longer support the dominant power in Iraq while also keeping a hand extended to the opposition.
Al-Qaeda in Iraq, a group headed by Jordanian militant Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, claimed responsibility Thursday for the Amman bombings. In an Internet statement, the group said it targeted the hotels because they had been turned into “a backyard garden” for the enemies of Islam by “the tyrant of Jordan,” a reference to King Abdallah II.
The statement warned of more attacks. “Let the tyrant of Jordan know that the protection walls for the Jews and the camp for the Crusader army are now in the range of fire of our holy warriors,” it said.
Leaders of the new Iraqi government, which has had tense relations with Jordan, portrayed the bombings as a case of blowback, in which Jordan is paying the price for sheltering Islamic militants and former members of Saddam’s regime.
“I hope that these attacks will wake up the Jordanian street to end its sympathy with Saddam’s remnants, who exploit the freedom in (Jordan) to have a safe shelter to plot their criminal acts against Iraqis,” said Laith Kubba, the top Iraqi government spokesman.
Others noted that the bombings could signal a dangerous new trend, where the grinding insurgency in Iraq would export its violence to neighboring countries.
“This is a prime example of how the American invasion of Iraq has destabilized the entire region,” said Diaa Rashwan, a leading expert on Islamic militancy at the Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies in Cairo, Egypt. “The Americans created a center for militants to meet and train in Iraq. This did not exist before the invasion, and Iraq’s neighbors are going to pay the price.”
The Amman bombings could prompt an exodus among the thousands of contractors, aid workers, security consultants and diplomats who have made Jordan their base of operations as security in Iraq deteriorated. By some estimates, tens of billions of dollars have poured into the Jordanian economy since the US invasion of Iraq. But the investment hinged on the country being stable and immune to the chaos next door.
Since 2003, Jordan’s rulers have publicly backed the United States despite a population that largely supports the Iraqi insurgents and pines for the return of Saddam’s regime. The Jordanian government relied heavily on its security and intelligence services to keep anti-American sentiments in check.
Jordan’s security apparatus is considered among the most effective in the region. But some officials say it could not balance the government’s policy of supporting Washington while also allowing Iraqi Baathists and Islamists to operate freely.
“The Jordanian intelligence services have an excellent record of penetrating militant groups,” an Arab security official said on the condition of anonymity. “The security policy is set by the government, which determines how much breathing room to give these groups. I would imagine the bombings will lead to a massive crackdown.”
For more than a year, Iraqi officials have accused the Jordanians of allowing Al-Zarqawi’s supporters to recruit suicide bombers and fighters from Jordan. Leaders of the Shiite-dominated government in Baghdad nurse a grudge against Jordan for helping Saddam in the 1990s. They also view King Abdallah, a Sunni, as an opponent of the Shiite resurgence in Iraq.
The son of Palestinian refugees, Al-Zarqawi was born and raised in the Jordanian town of Zarqa. He traveled to Afghanistan in 1989, where he trained at an Al-Qaeda camp. In 1992, he returned to Jordan and was arrested with other militants accused of trying to overthrow the monarchy. He spent seven years in prison.
Soon after his release, Al-Zarqawi was fingered as the main planner of a plot in late 1999 to bomb several Amman hotels during millennium celebrations. “Al-Qaeda has become a plague that infected Iraq,” said Kubba, the Iraqi spokesman. “It is now transmitted by the same rats to other countries.”
