Jordan has detained one of the four militants behind the weekend rocket attack on US warships in Aqaba bay, but it believes the other three have fled to Iraq.
Jordan has received several warnings in recent months that Aqaba was a primary target of the al-Qaeda terror network, a security official has said.
The four plotters belonged to an Iraq-based terrorist group and police have arrested one of them, Mohammed Hassan Abdullah al-Sihly, the government said in a statement broadcast on television late on Monday. It did not say how or where he was detained.
In Friday's attack, the most serious against the US navy since the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen, one rocket flew across the bow of an amphibious assault ship and crashed into a warehouse, killing a Jordanian soldier. Another missile landed near a Jordanian hospital, and a third hit a taxi on the outskirts of an Israeli airport, but did not explode.
Al-Sihly and his two accomplice sons came from the north Syrian city of Hama, a Jordanian security official said yesterday.
The leader of the group, Mohammed Hamid Hussein, an Iraqi, and al-Sihly's sons crossed into Iraq hours before a timing device triggered the firing of the Katyusha rockets from a warehouse on the outskirts of Aqaba, the government said in its statement.
The statement did not name the Iraqi terrorist group, but a Jordanian security official has said the rockets -- four of which were found in the warehouse -- were similar to those used by insurgents in Iraq.
An al-Qaeda group, the Abdullah Azzam Brigades, has claimed responsibility for Friday's attack.
Al-Sihly, who lived in Amman, had been surveying sites for the attack in Aqaba since Aug. 6, the statement said.
It said the four plotters had smuggled the seven rockets into Jordan from Iraq, modifying the gasoline tank of their Mercedes to hide the weapons.
"The investigation showed that the terrorist group was in constant touch with its leadership in Iraq during preparation for the attack to keep it abreast on developments," the statement said.
Shortly after the statement was broadcast, residents of Aqaba took to the streets to celebrate the arrest of the Syrian suspect. The television showed pictures of motorists honking horns, people ululating, dancing and waving the Jordanian flag and pictures of Jordan's ruler, King Abdullah II.
Authorities believe the unfired rockets were intended for other Aqaba targets. Key sites in the city include a chain of international hotels frequented by US troops.
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