Jordanian sources: Iran ordered attack on Israeli convoy

JerusalemPost.com
By AMIR MIZROCH AND YAAKOV KATZ

Jordanian bombs squad members inspect the site where a bomb targeted a convoy of cars from the Israeli Embassy in Amman, Jordan, Thursday.
Photo: AP

Last week's failed attempt on the lives of Israeli diplomats in Jordan was apparently carried out on instructions from Teheran, sources close to Jordan's General Intelligence Department (GID) revealed on Monday.

The sources said the GID was investigating the possibility that the explosives used in the attack had been smuggled into the kingdom by Iranian diplomats.

The attack itself was apparently carried out by local al-Qaida supporters who received money and explosives from Iran, the sources said.

On Monday, Al-Arabiya reported that an Amman taxi driver was arrested on suspicion of involvement in the bombing.

According to the sources, the GID believes that the attack came in response to the killing of Iranian scientist Prof. Massoud Ali Muhammadi in Teheran last week. Ali Muhammadi was killed by a remote-controlled bomb on a motorcycle.

On Monday, Iran's Interior Minister Mostafa Muhammad Najjar vowed to take revenge on Israel over Ali-Muhammadi's assassination

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad accused Israel of being behind the assassination, which he said had been carried out in "Zionist style."

The sources in Amman pointed out that the attack on the Israeli diplomatic convoy had been carried out in a way similar to the assault on the slain Iranian professor.

"We can see Iran's fingerprints on the roadside bombing," the sources said. "The investigation is continuing in various directions."

Israel has been on high alert in recent weeks ahead of the second anniversary of the assassination of Hizbullah terror mastermind Imad Mughniyeh in Damascus.

A number of attempts by Hizbullah to avenge Mughniyeh's February 2008 killing have been thwarted, including a plot last year to bomb Israel's embassy in Baku, Azerbaijan, and the Israeli defense establishment is concerned that Hizbullah will make an effort to strike an Israeli target ahead of the anniversary.

Security officials are also considering the possibility that the attack may have been carried out by al-Qaida or one of its affiliates, or a Palestinian terrorist group.

Last year three Hamas activists were sentenced in Jordan to five years in prison for conducting surveillance of the Israeli Embassy in Amman.

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Jordan denies reports that it arrested suspect in bombing attempt

JerusalemPost.com
Jan 16, 2010 17:15 | Updated Jan 16, 2010 18:39

Jordan on Saturday denied reports that it had arrested a suspect in connection with last week's bombing attempt which apparently targeted Israeli Embassy officials.

Jordan's Information Minister Nabil Sharif said that the investigation was ongoing and that the results would be published upon its completion.

"We are following this issue with great care, and consider the attack as an attack on Jordan first of all. Those who gain from it are only the enemies of Jordan," he said.

Note: Let me post picture of the group I believe is responsible (see below):

Hezbollah salute

Israeli embassy convoy escapes harm from two bomb blasts on Jordanian road

DEBKAfile Special Report

January 14, 2010, 2:19 PM (GMT+02:00)

An Israeli embassy convoy was driving from Amman to the Allenby Bridge crossing Thursday, Jan. 14, when two roadside bombs exploded on the Jordanian road approaching the crossing. No one was hurt. The ambassador was not among the passengers.

DEBKAfile reports that Israeli embassy staffers in Amman usually spend their weekends at home and al Qaeda or Hamas spotters appear to have discovered the convoy's regular route to the international crossing.

They were able to plant the bombs accordingly because of a serious lapse in Jordanian counter-terror security.

Amman has been on high terror alert since the Jordanian triple agent Hamam Khalil al-Balawi succeeded in murdering seven CIA agents and a Jordanian intelligence officer at a remote base in Afghanistan on Dec. 30. That episode exposed the Hashemite Kingdom's close partnership with US intelligence in combating Islamist terror. Amman was braced for reprisals but did not count on the first one being directed against an Israeli target.

Jordan demands return of Dead Sea Scrolls 'seized' by Israel

Jordan has asked the UN to force Israel to hand over
Dead Sea Scrolls, which it says Israel stole.

Haartz.com

Jordan has asked the United Nations to force Israel to hand over a significant portion of the Dead Sea Scrolls, a collection of some 900 ancient religious texts unearthed in the 1940s and 1950s, Army Radio reported on Wednesday.

The Jordanian government has also asked the Canadian government to impound the 2,000-year-old documents, currently on display at a museum in Toronto, according to reports in the Canadian press.

Jordan cited international law to request that Canada take possession of the documents until the dispute is resolved. Jordan has accused Israel of seizing the scrolls from a museum in east Jerusalem during the 1967 Six-Day War.

Jordan's claim to the scrolls, which academics believe were compiled about 2,000 years ago by the Essenes, an obscure Jewish sect, may discourage other countries from hosting the exhibit.

National Union MK Aryeh Eldad on Wednesday said that Jordan has no right to demand the return of the scrolls, Army Radio reported

and

Dead Sea Scrolls Signify Occupation?

http://www.myjewishlearning.com/blog/history-community/dead-sea-scrolls-signify-occupation/

By Jeremy Moses | June 30th, 2009 2:36 PM

I’m not much of a museum person. It’s not that I’m uncultured (I mean, I am), but I may have had some bad experiences as a kid at museums. You see, my parents are museum lovers. So we went to a lot when I was young. But let me tell you something people. Being seven years old at an art museum, standing around while your parents read every caption under every painting, is just plain torture. I’d rather have had them make me eat soap.

So I guess I’m torn when I hear about a boycott of an museum exhibit. I call for boycott exhibits all the time: “History of the monkey? Don’t see it! Down with monkeys!

Then there is this call for a boycott. A restaurant in Toronto is in a little bit of trouble because their website promoted the boycott of a Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit at the Royal Ontario Museum. What’s the controversy? Israeli occupation of Palestinian land, duh.

Le Select Bistro is asking its patrons to boycott the exhibit because the scrolls were obtained by Israel in the Six Day War. You see, the Dead Sea Scrolls before 1967 in the Rockefeller Museum in East Jerusalem, which was controlled by Jordan. After the war, Israel took control of the area.

The scrolls were then moved to the Israel Museum. But its not like they were ransacked from the Rockefeller Museum or anything. The museum are associates with each others.

Protesters: Stick to checkpoints, and outposts. It will serve you much better.

”