{"id":27199,"date":"2012-10-22T14:02:31","date_gmt":"2012-10-22T11:02:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/?p=27199"},"modified":"2012-10-22T14:02:31","modified_gmt":"2012-10-22T11:02:31","slug":"jordan-al-qaeda-al-qaeda-terror-plot-smashes-in-jordan-middle-east-news-27199","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/jordan-al-qaeda-al-qaeda-terror-plot-smashes-in-jordan-middle-east-news-27199\/","title":{"rendered":"Jordan Al-Qaeda: Al-Qaeda terror plot smashes in Jordan \/ Middle East News"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/h1>\n

Eleven men are arrested for allegedly planning to attack shopping malls and Western diplomatic missions in the country.<\/h1>\n

Sameeh Maaytah, a spokesman for the Jordanian government, said 11 suspected militants were in police custody.<\/p>\n

State news agency Petra reported that the men had been planning a wave of attacks on diplomatic missions, hotels and other key sites.<\/p>\n

Mr Maaytah said the men – who are all Jordanian citizens – had brought arms into Jordan from neighbouring Syria to use in the alleged plot.<\/p>\n

“The kind of weapons, explosives they were ready to use include mortars and machine guns,” he said.<\/p>\n

“I say again they hold Jordanian nationality, they went to Syria and came back using the Samr route which crosses the Syrian-Jordanian border.”<\/p>\n

He added al Qaeda operatives based in Iraq have been assisting the suspects with the manufacture of explosives.<\/p>\n

The suspects were arrested over the past few days by Jordanian intelligence agents, he said.<\/p>\n

A judicial source told news agency AFP the case had been referred to the prosecutor of the state security court – a military tribunal.<\/p>\n

“They will face two charges: conspiracy to carry out terrorist acts and possession of explosives,” said the source who declined to be named. The charges carry the death penalty.<\/p>\n

The group scouted possible targets in Amman, experimented with explosives after getting hold of raw materials to make bombs, and had begun selecting possible suicide bomb candidates, Petra reported.<\/p>\n

Among their alleged plans were attacks on two malls as well as a major attack in the upmarket Abdoun neighbourhood in western Amman.<\/p>\n

A security source told Reuters the cell had manufactured explosives “aimed at inflicting the heaviest losses possible”.<\/p>\n

“The group was able to devise new types of explosives to be used for the first time and planned to add TNT to increase their destructive impact,” the source said.<\/p>\n

Jordan is a key US ally and is one of the safest countries in the Middle East. However, it has seen al Qaeda-linked violence before.<\/p>\n

In 2005, triple suicide bomb attacks at luxury hotels in Amman killed 60 people.<\/p>\n

Jordanian authorities have reportedly arrested a number of jihadists in recent months who have crossed into Syria to join the anti-regime armed insurgency there.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eleven men are arrested for allegedly planning to attack shopping malls and Western diplomatic missions in the country.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":702,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[80,63,1,118,37,14],"tags":[2815,36593,36597,36598,9278,36594,36595,77159,36592,36601,36596,36600,36599],"class_list":["post-27199","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-breaking-news","category-daily","category-general","category-hot","category-middle-east","category-world","tag-al-qaeda","tag-al-qaeda-jordan","tag-al-qaeda-terror","tag-eleven-men-arrested-jordan","tag-jordan","tag-jordan-al-qaeda","tag-jordan-terror","tag-middle-east","tag-middle-east-jordan","tag-terror-al-qaeda","tag-terror-middle-east","tag-western-diplomatic-missions-al-qaeda","tag-western-diplomatic-missions-jordan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27199","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/702"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27199"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27199\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}