Jordanian soldiers ‘aided’ suicide attacks

A NATIONWIDE hunt for the accomplices of suicide bombers who blew up three hotels in Amman, killing 57 people, has led to the arrest of at least 10 members of the Jordanian armed forces, triggering worries that Al-Qaeda has infiltrated the Arab army most closely allied to the West.

As hotel workers mopped blood stains at the five-star hotels targeted by the bombers — believed to have been sent by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq — Jordanian security forces said they had arrested 120 people, mainly Iraqis and Jordanians.

Security sources said they believed the bombers were Iraqi, but that they had received help from Jordanian soldiers who had been seduced by radical preachers secretly aligned with Zarqawi.

The Jordanians’ fear that Al-Qaeda might have infiltrated the armed forces was raised for the first time in August, when a missile was fired from the shore at an American warship in the Red Sea port of Aqaba. “They are inside,” a security source said. “It remains to be seen how many they are and how dangerous.”