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Jordan: Al Qaeda killed diplomat
From Mike Boettcher and Henry Schuster
AMMAN, Jordan (CNN) -- The Jordanian government says two men who confessed they were members of al Qaeda have been arrested for the assassination of U.S. diplomat Laurence Foley. It also linked them to an al Qaeda leader who has been accused of being an expert in chemical and biological weapons, and was accused by President Bush of finding temporary haven in Iraq earlier this year. Sources also told CNN that in the course of the investigation, authorities uncovered evidence of other al Qaeda sleeper cells elsewhere in the Middle East and that evidence is being pursued by Jordanian and U.S. authorities. Foley was gunned down in front of his house in Amman on the morning of October 28 as he was walking to his car. He was a senior administrative officer with the U.S. Agency for International Development in Jordan. According the Jordanian statement, which was also read Saturday on state-run television during the evening news, the arrests were made by the Jordanian General Intelligence Department. The two men arrested were Salem Sa'ed Salem bin Suweid, a Libyan national, and Yasser Fathi Ibraheem, a Jordanian. The statement says that bin Suweid "underwent military training in al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan" and that he entered Jordan a few months ago "using a forged Tunisian passport." According to the statement, "bin Suweid and Ibraheem confessed that they are members of Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda organization, and are affiliated with bin Laden's lieutenant, Ahmad Fadeel Nazal Al-Khalayleh, known as Abu Musa'ab Al-Zarqawi." Zarqawi left Jordan in 1999 and has been convicted in absentia with a plot to bomb tourist hotels in Amman during the millennium celebrations. He reportedly fled Afghanistan after U.S. operations began there, going first to Iran, then Iraq, where he was said to have received medical treatment. President Bush referred to him -- without mentioning his name -- during a speech in Cincinnati in October. "Some al Qaeda leaders who fled Afghanistan went to Iraq," the president said. "These include one very senior al Qaeda leader who received medical treatment in Baghdad this year, and who has been associated with planning for chemical and biological attacks."
Reports have said that Zarqawi was linked to the planning of gas attacks in Europe. The Jordanian government said he "had devised an operational program for the two perpetrators to carry out terrorist operations against embassies, diplomats, foreigners, security officers and other strategic targets in Jordan." It also said the men confessed that Zarqawi had provided the men with $18,000 of a planned $50,000 to carry out the operation, along with "machine guns, a pistol with a silencer, hand grenades and tear gas cylinders." They also confessed, Jordan said, that there were plans -- never carried out -- to smuggle surface-to-air missiles into Jordan. The two men were said to have chosen Foley because his security arrangements left him vulnerable and the report describes a chilling scenario on the morning of October 28: "In the morning of October 28, 2002, bin Suwied and Ibraheem drove the rented car to the area where Foley lived. When they reached his residence at 7 a.m, bin Suwied got out of the car and walked to Foley's garden, carrying on him a 7mm gun with a silencer and a tear gas cylinder, wearing anti-bullets vest, blue jeans and masked with a kaffieh. "He hid behind Foley's car waiting for him to come out of his house. When Foley came out and intended to open his car's door, bin Suwied fired all the bullets in his gun at Foley and went back to the car, which was waiting for him near the house. Ibraheem, who was driving the car, and bin Suwied fled the area."
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