Amman, January 13: Jordanian Prime Minister Samir Rifai on Tuesday defended his country’s cooperation with the CIA in hunting Al-Qaeda militants who were behind the 2005 bombings at three Amman hotels.
He told the official Petra news agency that Jordan would continue to wage operations against terrorists outside the country “in coordination with others.”
“Our war against terrorism will continue, because we are part of this world and this requires coordination with others as well as an exchange of information,” Rifai said.
“We will be present in any place as long as our national security necessitates that … and we will reach our enemy anywhere and protect our security regardless of sacrifices,” he added.
Rifai spoke against the backdrop of the death of one of Jordan’s top intelligence officers, Capt. Ali bin Zeid, along with seven CIA agents in a suicide bombing that was carried out by a Jordanian physician at a forward US base in Khost, Afghanistan, on Dec. 30.
According to US media, the bomber, Humam Balawai, was a double agent who was due to brief a meeting at the base on the whereabouts of Al-Qaeda No.2 Ayman Al-Zawahiri, but instead blew himself up, killing the eight people.
Rifai’s remarks coincided with warning by the local press that Jordan’s defense against Al-Qaeda should be confined to the country’s borders.
“The war in Afghanistan is not ours and we should stop waging battles on behalf of others,” Fahd Kheitan, managing director of the independent Alarab Alyawm newspaper, said.
Rifai said that the Amman hotel bombings in 2005 were instrumental in “developing our preventive security strategy.”
The blasts, which killed at least 60 people and wounded hundreds others, were claimed by the Jordanian fugitive Abu Mussab Al-Zarqawi, who then headed Al-Qaeda’s branch in Iraq.
Al-Zarqawi was killed in a US airstrike inside Iraq and the Jordanian intelligence conceded to have played a role in hunting him.
——-Agencies