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Sunday, Aug. 21, 2005

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  Two other rockets were fired toward Israel from the warehouse located in the hills on Aqaba's northern edge about five miles from the port. One fell short and hit the wall of a Jordanian military hospital and the other landed inside Israel close to Eilat airport, lightly wounding a taxi driver.

The rocket firings deepened concerns about new Islamic militant activity in a sleepy corner of the Middle East usually known for beach vacations and Israel-Arab peacemaking. The tourist resort of Aqaba, on Jordan's tiny strip of coastline, is wedged next to Israel at the northern end of the Red Sea.

"We have found the rocket launcher in the warehouse from where they fired," Interior Minister Awni Yirfas told The Associated Press in what marked one of the first key breakthroughs in the investigation.

"The investigation is still underway and issues related to it will remain secret so it would not harm the process. I cannot give you the names or say if we are looking for the perpetrators in the desert or any other place."

Jordanian security forces are hunting for six people, including one Syrian and several Egyptians and Iraqis, who may have rented the warehouse several days ago and possibly escaped in a vehicle with Kuwaiti license plates after firing the rockets.

A Jordanian security official, who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media, said an unspecified number of Jordanians and people of Syrian, Iraqi and Egyptian nationalities were detained Friday and Saturday as part of the probe. But he did not say they were suspected of carrying out the attacks.

One rocket fired Friday sailed over the USS Ashland's bow and hit a nearby Jordanian military warehouse that U.S. forces use to store goods bound for Iraq. One Jordanian soldier was killed and another was wounded. No Americans were injured.

The Ashland, an amphibious assault ship, docked Aug. 13 with the helicopter carrier USS Kearsarge at Aqaba's port for joint exercises with Jordan's military. Both vessels left port after the attack as a precaution.

Mystery also surrounds the source of the rockets, several thousand of which are believed to be in the possession of Lebanon's Shiite Muslim militant group, Hezbollah, which is backed by Iran and Syria.

Jordanian officials have not yet commented on where they believe the rockets originated nor on who might have provided them.

An al-Qaida-linked group, the Abdullah Azzam Brigades, said in an Internet statement that it staged the attack, but the claim could not be authenticated. The same group was among several militant organizations that claimed responsibility for terror bombings in three Egyptian Sinai Peninsula resorts during the past year, which killed around 100 people.

Jordan's King Abdullah II, who is in Russia on a state visit, condemned Friday's attacks.

"This criminal attack will not deter Jordan from carrying out the true message of Islam, which terrorists are trying to distort," Abdullah said in a statement carried by the state-run Petra news agency.

Until last year, the Red Sea area, including Egypt's Sinai, had seen no violence, but since October the area has seen a string of attacks. These include the Egyptian resort bombings in Sharm el-Sheik and Taba and a recent roadside bomb blast in the northern Sinai that targeted a vehicle belonging to the Multinational Force and Observers, which is helping monitor the 1979 Egypt-Israeli peace deal.

One rocket fired Friday sailed over the USS Ashland's bow and hit a nearby Jordanian military warehouse that U.S. forces use to store goods bound for Iraq. One Jordanian soldier was killed and another was wounded. No Americans were injured.

The Ashland, an amphibious assault ship, docked Aug. 13 with the helicopter carrier USS Kearsarge at Aqaba's port for joint exercises with Jordan's military. Both vessels left port after the attack as a precaution.

Despite the attacks, shopkeepers in Aqaba said it was business as usual on Saturday, with beaches and seaside cafes packed with foreigners and Jordanians and the resort's streets crowded. Hotels reported no mass cancellations or early departures.

"Life is very normal. The cafe is full of foreign tourists who arrived early in the morning to swim," said kiosk owner Abdul Hakim Al-Abed, 40. "We didn't hear anything during the blast."

Investigators are looking into how three, five-foot-long Katyusha rockets entered Jordan, which has a strong security posture due to its vicinity to Israel, the Palestinian territories and Iraq. It has also been targeted previously by Islamic extremists.

Hezbollah pounded Israel's north with Katyusha rockets for two decades in a guerrilla war that ended with Israel's pullout from southern Lebanon in 2000.

In December 2001, three Hezbollah members were arrested in Jordan after entering through Syria to deliver Katyusha rockets to Palestinian militants in the bordering West Bank opposed to Israel's occupation of Palestinian territories.

Following intense diplomatic contacts by Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah and Lebanese President Emile Lahoud, Jordanian authorities returned the three to Lebanon in May, 2002.

© 2005 Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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