Jordan Is New Al Qaeda Target

Scenes of horror greet relatives of bombing victims at Amman hospital (AFP/Khalil Mazraawi)

I extend my deepest condolences to the people of Jordan for their suffering in the Al-Qaeda terror attack in Amman which has taken 57 lives (so far). It appears that the targets were three hotels frequented by Western tourists and businesspeople, but especially Israelis. Haaretz is reporting that Jordanian security officials whisked most Israelis out of the country before the attacks. UPDATE: Haaretz ran this correction saying:

There is no truth to reports that Israelis staying at the Radisson SAS hotel in Amman on Wednesday were evacuated by Jordanian security forces before the bombing that took place there.

The Israelis were escorted back to Israel by Jordanian security personnel only after the attacks had taken place, contrary to earlier reports.

I only wish they’d gotten it right the first time.

No Israelis are reported (again so far) among the dead or wounded. UPDATE: One Israeli-Arab wedding guest was killed. Sadly, Jordanians themselves bore the brunt of the assault.

(credit: Salah Malkawi/Getty Images

The Jordanian government appears to have realized an attack was imminent as the prime minister had declared today a national holiday so there would be less commercial activity and less likelihood of people in public spaces. But they must not have had a specific enough warning to evacuate these specific hotels in time.

I was listening to an Mideast radio analyst (I think it was NPR or Democracy Now) speak about the significance of the attack, which appears to be the work of Zarkawi’s terror bunch. First, it shows that he has now succeeded in exporting his war outside of Iraq’s borders. This is the Bush Administration’s worst nightmare. They claimed that toppling Hussein would bring democracy and increasing stability to the Mideast, a preposterously grandiose claim. But what the Amman bombing proves is that Bush (with Zarkawi’s nefarious help) has done quite the opposite. Our war against Iraq has destablized not just Iraq, but Jordan too. If you add the Taiba bombings in Egypt (if they were perpetrated by Al Qaeda which is not clear) and attacks in Saudi Arabia going back several years, then it seems that Arab governments allied to the U.S. or oriented toward the West will be high on the list of those targeted by militants. And “stability” seems nowhere in sight.