Iraq Qaeda claims rocket attack in Jordan port-Web
(Reuters)
Updated: 2005-08-23 19:03

Iraq's al Qaeda said on Tuesday it was behind a failed rocket attack on U.S. Navy ships in Jordan's Red Sea port of Aqaba, according to an Internet statement, Reuters reported.

The USS Ashland is seen at Aqaba port in Amman August 19, 2005. [Reuters]

The group, led by Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, said those who carried out the strike last Friday had fled to safety.

"Your brothers in the al Qaeda Organization in Iraq have been planning the Aqaba raid for a while," the group said in a statement posted on an Islamist Internet site it often uses.

"The rockets were fired at their targets -- a group of ships belonging to the crusader American forces -- in Aqaba and Eliat.

"We would like to tell you that we delayed claiming this attack so that our brothers could complete their withdrawal ... and they returned safely to their base."

Jordan has blamed the strike on an Iraq-based group which some officials said was linked to Zarqawi. Three rockets fired from a warehouse missed the U.S. warships but killed a Jordanian soldier and struck the Israeli port of Eliat.

Jordanian state television said on Monday three attackers had escaped across the border into Iraq after the strike but that police had arrested a Syrian who is accused of helping them.

The attack was the most serious on U.S. interests in staunchly pro-Western Jordan since the killing of a U.S. diplomat in Amman in 2002.

Zarqawi, whose group is waging a battle against U.S. and foreign forces in Iraq, has vowed to punish Jordan's rulers for "aiding the treacherous enemy America."

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