Iraq under suspicion for diplomat murder

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October 29, 2002

By Rana Sabbagh-Gargour in Amman and Tim Reid in Washington

A SENIOR US diplomat was shot dead by an unknown assailant outside his home in Amman yesterday.

The attack, the first assassination of a Western diplomat in Jordan, was condemned by Jordanian officials as “criminal and treacherous”. It came amid rising popular anger in the country at the perceived American support for Israel’s crackdown on the Palestinians and US plans for an imminent war against Iraq.

Larry Foley, 62, a senior administrative employee of the United States Agency for International Development, died instantly when a lone gunman fired seven bullets at close range as he was about to get into his car to drive to his office at 7.25am.

Mr Foley’s wife heard several shots and rushed outside to find her husband’s body lying in the garage of their two- storey villa in a smart suburb in western Amman. Diplomats said that she saw the gunman flee the scene.

Doctors said that Mr Foley, the father of three adult children who live in America, died from bullet wounds to his chest.

Jordanian politicians speculated that the attack was backed either by Iraq, which is worried that Jordan will turn its back on it in the event of a war, or by Muslim militants who want to avenge Jordan’s support for the US-led war against terrorism.

The White House said that the United States had begun its own investigation into the murder and that terrorism had not been ruled out.

Ari Fleischer, the White House spokesman, said that President Bush deeply regretted Mr Foley’s death. “The circumstances are under investigation,” he said, adding that Jordanian authorities were being very helpful. Jordan is known for its tight security, enforced by a formidable intelligence apparatus.

Nevertheless, the attack came weeks after the US Government had notified the several thousand Americans living in Jordan of uncorroborated information indicating that a member of the al-Qaeda terrorist network was considering a plan to kidnap American citizens in Jordan.

Marwan Moasher, Jordan’s Foreign Minister and a former Ambassador to Washington, went to the US Embassy to offer his condolences and to reaffirm strong bilateral ties.

At the scene of the shooting anti-terrorist experts and police gathered evidence in the presence of US security personnel. Jordan is a key moderate ally of the United States in the region, with King Abdullah meeting Mr Bush at least six times in the past 20 months. The King is walking a political tightrope as he tries to balance close ties with Washington, whose aid to Jordan this year stands at close to $500 million (£320 million), and its dependence on Iraq for hugely subsidised oil supplies.

The King is also trying to shift the deeply pro-Iraqi public opinion in his country. Jordan and Egypt are the only Arab countries to have signed peace deals with Israel.

Despite official denials that Jordan will allow US forces to use its territory as a launch pad for an attack against Iraq, diplomats say that it appears to be positioning itself to go along with the United States-led war against Iraq because it needs American strategic, economic and political assistance.

There are between 150,000 and 400,000 Iraqis in Jordan, many having fled from the effects of UN sanctions in their homeland. Jordan’s security agencies are closely monitoring them as they are known to include agents of Iraq’s intelligence services, who could try to destabilise Jordan as the war on Iraq nears. Some were deported after a recent crackdown.

“Jordan will not repeat the mistake of 1990,” said one official, referring to the decision by the late King Hussein not to join the coalition against Saddam Hussein in the Gulf War. “This time, we clearly want to be on the winning side.”

US-Jordanian ties returned to their past level of warmth only after Jordan signed the peace treaty with Israel.

Jordan has supplied the United States with intelligence material on al-Qaeda, based on information that it gathered from the scores of Jordanians who were seized when they returned home from Afghanistan after the fall of the Taleban. Ten men accused of conspiring to carry out terro istr attacks against US and Israeli targets are being tried at the country’s state security court.

-- Anonymous, October 28, 2002


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