AMMAN, 12 May 2006 — Three alleged Hamas activists confessed on state-run Jordan television yesterday to having smuggled arms to Jordan and receiving military training in Syria.

They said that among the tasks assigned to them was the “monitoring of movement” of Jordanian intelligence officials and employees in certain areas of Amman.

The government’s official spokesman Nasser Judeh said that the three men formed only one cell of more than 20 Hamas elements who have been detained over the past weeks in this connection.

The Jordanian authorities declared on April 19 that Hamas activists attempted to smuggle arms to Jordan and planned to target Jordanian officials.

The charges were taken as a pretext for postponement of the visit to Jordan scheduled for the next day by Palestinian Foreign Minister Mahmoud Al-Zahar.

The cell’s leader, who identified himself as Ayman Daraghmeh, 34, said that he traveled to Syrian where he received training under the supervision of two Hamas officials he identified by their Nom de Guerre “Abu Al-Abed” and “Abu Anas”.

He said that at their instructions he received arms in Jordan, including Lao missiles, which he stored in the northern Irbid district bordering Syria. He later guided the Jordanian intelligence personnel to the site.

Judeh earlier said that the plot was masterminded by a Damascus-based military leader of Hamas, which denied the charges as fabrication designed under US and Israeli pressure to justify the deferment of Zahar’s visit to Amman.

Daraghmeh said that he met with another man who asked him to monitor the movement of a Jordanian intelligence official near the city of Salt, 15 kilometers West of Amman.

Ahmed Abu Rabee, 27, a car workshop assistant, said that he was recruited as Hamas member by Daraghmeh after returning from Iraq, where he was a friend of Daraghmeh’s brother, who was killed there.

“Daraghmeh asked me to buy arms and ammunition and assigned me the job of watching a bus which carried intelligence employees and shuttles between Amman and Zarqa”, about 20 kilometers East of Amman, Rabee said.

The third alleged Hamas member identified himself as Ahmed Abu Diab, a mosque prayer leader employed by the Ministry of Endowments and Islamic Affairs.

He conceded to have been recruited as Hamas member in April 2004 by Daraghmeh with Abu Rabee acting as a connection.

“He first asked me to buy arms and ammunition for Hamas and later asked me to travel to the port of Aqaba (on the Red Sea) to get information about foreign tourists frequenting the area,” he said.

Abu Diab said that he was also asked to “collect information” about a Jordanian Christian called Sami Al-Khouri, who has a farm where Abu Diab worked as a part-timer.

“They told me that Khouri is a Jew and not a Christian and that targeting him will serve Hamas objectives,” he added.

Judeh said that the Jordanian government had decided to make the revelations after the Hamas-led government failed to take part in a Palestinian “political-security delegation” that ended two days of discussions with Jordanian Intelligence Department officials earlier yesterday.

The Jordan television also screened rockets, machineguns, grenades, explosives and ammunition, which it said, were found in Hamas caches.

Judeh told reporters Wednesday that the confiscated arms included Katyusha rockets that were made in Iran.