| Now there's a headline to warm the heart and soul! |
CAIRO, April 6 — A military court in Jordan on Tuesday sentenced to death eight Islamic militants linked to Al Qaeda — six of them in absentia — for the assassination of an American diplomat in the front yard of his Amman home in October 2002. One militant, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the most prominent of those still at large, is believed to be operating in Iraq, and Islamist Web sites on Tuesday featured an audiotape supposedly from him threatening further attacks against American and other foreign forces there, as well as American officials. "We will not let you off, you snakes of evil, until you lift your hands off our mosques and stop shedding the blood of Sunnis," said Mr. Zarqawi, whom the United States accuses of building a network of foreign militants in Iraq, putting a $10 million bounty on his head.
| "You just watch yourself. We're wanted men. I have the death sentence on twelve systems." |
Besides Mr. Zarqawi, Jordan accused 10 others in the murder of Laurence Foley, 60, a senior administrator for the United States Agency for International Development. Salem Saad bin Suweid, 41, a Libyan convicted of shooting Mr. Foley, and Yasir Friehat, a Jordanian, 29, convicted for driving the getaway car, were the two men present in court who were sentenced to death. Two other Jordanians were sentenced to 15 and 6 years hard labor, respectively, while a fifth was released for lack of evidence.
[The Associated Press reported Wednesday in Amman that the United States Embassy there was the target of a terror plot. Justin Siberell, an embassy spokesman, said that while Jordanian officials were questioning suspects arrested Wednesday with a car filled with explosives, it "emerged that one of the targets was the U.S. Embassy."] |