Jordanian police investigating last week’s failed attacks on two US warships in the Red Sea port of Aqaba have detained several suspects, officials said on Sunday.
Those arrested included Iraqis, Syrians, Egyptians and Jordanians according to reports on the Associated Press and Reuters news wires.
Interior Minister Awni Yarfas said security forces were making good progress and had also found the launcher used to fire three Katyusha rockets on Friday. The missiles missed their apparent targets but killed a Jordanian soldier and hit the adjacent Israeli resort of Eilat. A group claiming links to al-Qaeda later said it it had fired the missiles.
The US ships, USS Ashland and USS Kearsarge, on Friday left the port immediately after the attacks. Jordan is an important logistics base for the US military in Iraq and the ships had been on a joint training exercise with the Jordanian navy.
It was reported on Friday that three Iraqis and an Egyptian were said to have leased a warehouse in Aqaba from which the rockets were launched just a few days before the attacks.
The Abdullah al-Azzam Brigades of the al-Qaeda Organisation in the Levant and Egypt said in a statement on an Islamist web site that it had carried out the attacks. The group has also claimed responsibility for previous attacks, including the bombings in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh that killed 64 people last month.
Shaul Mofaz, Israeli defence minister, said the attacks were "intended to hit the Israeli side and the Jordanian side as well". He said Israel was co-operating with Jordan in the investigation.
Israel, which signed a peace deal with Jordan in 1994, recently heightened its travel warning to Jordan, saying there was a raised threat against Israeli targets and tourists.
Earlier this month, Jordan arrested 17 militants linked to the al-Qaeda network in Iraq and a Saudi group which were said to be plotting to attack US military personnel. Security measures were tightened at Amman airport, sensitive government sites and embassies of countries backing the US military in Iraq.
Although Jordan is not a crude exporter, oil rose to over $64 a barrel after Friday's attacks as the market took into account that a strike against an oil tanker in the Middle East was now more likely. Meanwhile, Egypt was reported to have tightened its security along the Suez canal.
Friday's attacks were the first on a US vessel in the region since three US servicemen were killed on the USS Firebolt when it was defending an Iraqi oil platform in April 2004, said a spokesman for the US Fifth Fleet.
The attacks coincided with a period of high tension in Israel as security forces this week started to evacuate about 8,000 Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip and northern West Bank as part of its disengagement plan.
Additional reporting by Peter Spiegel and Javier Blas in London
