(you only see it in the pop-up and can't link)Also Thursday, Jordan announced the arrest of 17 terrorists linked to Abu Musab al Zarqawi‘s al Qaeda network in Iraq and an affiliated Saudi group for plotting attacks on US personnel.
On July 16, DEBKA-Net-Weekly 214 revealed the plot's huge scale:
An ambitious attack in Jordan was foiled this week. It was to have been Zarqawi’s crowning venture. The scheme had four parts: One, to blow up the Iraqi-Jordanian oil pipeline from Kirkuk to Zarqa; two, to torch the hundreds of American and Jordan tanker trucks waiting outside Jordanian pumping stations including H4. The Jordanian-Iraqi border terminals were to have been attacked at the same time and the villages around the terminals and oil pipeline set on fire.
Four would have emanated from the first three: the cutoff of the main energy lifeline from Jordan to the US army in Iraq and Baghdad.
Jordanian intelligence got wind of the danger in time and aborted the multiple attacks.
DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s anti-terror sources reports that Zarqawi placed one of his lieutenants, Abu Abd al Raham al-Afghani in charge of this operation. His real name is believed to be Ismail Abu Awda. The man on the ground in Jordan was to have been Fahd Faiqi, a Saudi Arabian aged 26, who lives in Jordan and acts as Zarqawi’s main contact with Jordanian crime gangs.