Did Israel Have Prior Knowledge of the Amman 11/9 Terror Attacks?

by Michel Chossudovsky

Did Israel have prior knowledge of the terror attacks on three hotels in Amman, Jordan, which led to the death of 57 people?

According to an official Jordanian statement, the casualties included 33 Jordanians, six Iraqis, two Bahrainis, three Chinese, an Indonesian, a Syrian, a Saudi and an American.

Israeli citizens evacuated 
prior to the blast

At least two authoritative news sources cast doubt on the official version of events.

According to Haaretz, Israel managed, with the cooperation of the Jordanian security forces, to discreetly evacuate several Israeli citizens prior to the blast, who were staying at the Radisson SAS hotel:

"A number of Israelis staying yesterday at the Radisson SAS were evacuated before the bombing by Jordanian security forces, apparently due to a specific security alert. They were escorted back to Israel by security personnel.

The Foreign Ministry stated yesterday that no Israeli tourists are known to have been injured in the blasts. Representatives of Israel's embassy in Amman were in contact with local authorities to examine any report of injured Israelis, but none were received."

(Scores dead in three Amman hotel bombings; Israelis evacuated before attack, by Yoav Stern and Zohar Blumenkrantz, Haaretz, 9 November 2005)

Moreover, a report published in The Los Angeles Times, quoting an authoritative source, also suggests that Israeli intelligence had prior knowledge of the attacks and failed to intervene: "Amos N. Guiora, a former senior Israeli counter-terrorism official, said in a phone interview with The Times that sources in Israel had also told him about the pre-attack evacuations. 'It means there was excellent intelligence that this thing was going to happen,' said Guiora, a former leader of the Israel Defense Forces who now heads the Institute for Global Security Law and Policy at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland." (LA Times, 11 November 2005)

According to Amos N. Guiora: "The question that needs to be answered is why weren't the Jordanians working at the hotel similarly removed?" (quoted in LA Times, op. cit)

Retraction

No doubt under pressure from both the Israeli and Jordanian authorities, Yoav Stern and Zohar Blumenkrantz who authored the first report in Haaretz on November 9, retracted their statement to the effect that the Israeli citizens had been evacuated prior to the blast:

"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."

(No truth to report of Israeli evacuations before Amman bombs, By Yoav Stern, Haaretz, 10 November 2005)

Ironically, the following day, in the November 11 issue of Haaretz, the retraction had been retracted. The authors of the November 9 article Yoav Stern and Zohar Blumenkrantz had reaffirmed their earlier report:

"An Israeli Arab businessman was one of the casualties in the multi-pronged terror attacks, the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem said Thursday. Two high-ranking Palestinian security officials were also said to be among the dead. (...) It was still unclear whether there were any other Israeli casualties in the attack. (...)

Hours before the bombings, many Israelis were evacuated from the Radisson SAS, one of the hotels hit in the attacks, apparently due to a specific security alert." (Haaretz, 11 November 2005).

Head of Palestinian intelligence 
dies in attacks

Three high-ranking Palestinian intelligence officials including Maj.-Gen. Bashir Nafeh, head of the Palestinian Authority's military intelligence and Col. Abed Allun, a high-ranking Preventive Security forces official, who were staying at the Hyatt Hotel were also killed in the blast.

In this regard, Russian analyst Shamil Sultanov of the Russian Duma's International Affairs Committee has pointed to an "Israeli connection." According to Sultanov, in a radio interview, the death of Maj General Bashir Nafeh "has furthered the chances of Muhammad Dahlan" (who currently occupies the position of Minister of Civilian Affairs), to replace Mahmud Abbas as leader of the Palestinian National Authority. Sultanov suggests that this change in leadership within the Palestinian Authority would serve Israeli interests:

"If you consider these blasts, there are two key points, from my point of view. First, Jordan is a key player here for the Americans. The stance of the new king, Abdallah II, who, by the way is half-English, is fairly complex because contradictions have arisen between the old Jordanian team and the king in the last six months, even the last year. And in principle what has just happened is a very good opportunity for Abdallah II to make certain changes, to put it mildly, to his team and to strengthen his personal authority, and so on.

And the second theory I adhere to is the Israeli connection. Abu-Mazin [Mahmud Abbas], the leader of the Palestinian National Authority, is seriously ill. And many believe that his Fatah party may not win with such a leader, that it will definitely not win the parliamentary elections scheduled to take place in the next few months. So for a very large number of players - for the Americans, for Israel, for Sharon, for the Egyptians - [Palestinian Minister of Civilian Affairs Muhammad] Dahlan would be the optimal player and politician to replace Abu-Mazin. In that sense, these explosions, and in particular the murder, as a result of one of the blasts, of Bashir Nafi, the Palestinian National Authority's military intelligence chief in the West Bank, is, from my point of view, a clearing of the way for Dahlan."

(Radio Mayak, Moscow, in Russian, 1214 gmt 11 Nov 05, BBC Monitoring)

This Russian viewpoint is consistent with other assessments on the role of Dahlan, who actively collaborated from 1994 to 2001 with the Israeli IDF and Shin Bet in the crackdown and arrest of Hamas leaders. According to GlobalSecurity.org:

"Both Israel and the US [have] groomed Dahlan as a successor to Arafat."

Chinese Defense Delegation

According to CNN, there were three Chinese "students" among the dead. The official reports, however, confirm that the three Chinese were in fact members of a Chinese Defense delegation to Jordan from China's National Defense University. Beijing has rushed a high level investigative team integrated by China's ministries of Foreign Affairs and Defense to Amman with a view to investigating the deaths of the three Chinese military personnel.

Moreover, Dr Ghalib Abd-al-Mahdi, a senior Iraqi economic official and brother of Iraqi Vice-President Adil Abd-al-Mahdi, was also killed in the blasts.

Joint intelligence agreement 
between Israel and Jordan

According to an Israeli radio report, the attacks have opened the way towards the signing of a joint intelligence agreement between Israel and Jordan.

"Jordan is in the process of signing a joint security agreement and the establishment of an operations room for combating terrorism in cooperation with Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the Palestinian National Authority."

(Journalist quoted in Jordanian foreign minister's news conference, 13 November 2005)

Media disinformation

The attacks were immediately described by the Western media, without corroborating evidence and prior to the conduct of an investigation, "as bearing the hallmarks of Al Qaeda."

A statement allegedly written by "Al Qaeda in Iraq" was posted on a mysterious Islamist website. The web posting, which claimed responsibility for the attacks, stated that the attacks were in response to "the conspiracy against the Sunnis whose blood and honor were shed by Crusaders and the Shiites."

Aired on network TV around the World, the attacks were followed by organized mass rallies and demonstrations across Amman directed against terrorist mastermind Al Zarqawi.

What the Western media, however, has failed to report, is the atmosphere of disbelief and skepticism which characterizes Jordanian public opinion. Openly discussed and debated on the streets of Amman, as confirmed by a recent article in the New York Times (November 12, 2005), many Jordanians believe that Israel is behind the bombings.

Source: Global Research, www.globalresearch.ca/PrintArticle.php?articleId=1238

Prior Evacuation Of Israeli 
Citizens, Haaretz, Nov 11, 2005

The article "King Abdullah cancels trip to Israel after Amman triple suicide bombing" appeared in Haaretz on November 11, one day after Haaretz retracted the story "No truth to report of Israeli evacuations before Amman bombs" (by Yoav Stern, Haaretz Correspondent) in its November 10 issue. For the record www.globalresearch.ca is reproducing both articles. There the relevant paragraphs are highlighted.

"King Abdullah cancels trip to Israel after Amman triple suicide bombing", 
by Yoav Stern and Zohar Blumenkrantz, Haaretz November 11, 2005, http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/643639.html

"No truth to report of Israeli evacuations before Amman bombs", by Yoav Stern, Haaretz November 10 2005, http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/643661.html

Uruknet suggests that Amman's attacks were carried out by seasoned experts, particularly from Mossad, with the complicity of Jordan's intelligence and America's CIA, in an attempt to shift the support from average Sunni Jordanians for the Sunni resistance in Iraq.

And according to Arab2000, the real target of the attacks was the Palestinians and the Chinese, including "students" from China's University of National Defense and members of a delegation invited by the Royal Jordanian National Defense College on an academic exchange program.

It was reported those Chinese "students", over 40 years old, were at the hotel to meet with the Palestinian officials.

The Chinese government is known for its support to the Palestinian cause. In November 2004, the Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao stated that "The restoration of the Palestinian people's legitimate rights, including the right to statehood, should be the primary objective of the efforts to resolve the Middle Ease issue."

Al Jazeera 15 November 2005