I blogged on this yesterday and on how Nightline made it their sole story. So it's not going totally unnoticed.

But I think it's valid to not simply take the Jordanian government's word as simple gospel truth. They are, after all, an authoritarian government happy to torture anyone who troubles them.

Although as I noted, the folks confessing showed no signs of torture or maltreatment. But I also noted that the last time the Jordanian government put terrorist plotters on tv to confess, five years later a Jordanian court said they were innocent.

So it's reasonable to go a bit slow here and double-check the story as best as possible. (Which is doubtless very difficult to do.)

Incidentally, I note that this post is time-stamped "4:41 p.m." when I read it at shortly after 11:20 a.m. Rocky Mountain Time. Are you posting from somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean?

I believe WOC (and several other blogs) use Zulu time. I'm sure Joe will correct me if wrong.

We do. As an international blog with team members on several continents, Zulu time (GMT -0:00) makes a lot of sense for us.

Perhaps we should regard the WOT as our role in an intra-Islamic conflict, not in a clash of civilizations? Not that this would reduce the immediacy of the threat, but might help to clarify our goals a bit.

SAO: That is a very interesting idea-- Can you outline the principles in your strategy?

Anyone have any insight on this event just reported on Reuters? Is something funky going on in Syria or are they trying to claim that they're cracking down on terrorism? Or a renegade group that decided not to follow Assad's script?

Looks like attacks on the UN mission there.

Gary:

Jordanian officials have been telling foreign media outlets about the details of this plot since at least April 17, but yesterday was the first time that they revealed the full details of the plot to the general population. There is very much a reason for this - King Abdullah does not want his citizens to know the true scope of the terrorist threat until such time as he can announce that one has been thwarted.

However, even noting that Jordan is an authoritarian state doesn't remove the media's duty to report what officials in the Jordanian government (including the king) were saying to every foreign media outlet they ran across - especially given that this is the same media that bought the Raelians' claptrap about having cloned a human hook, line, and sinker.

As far as the confessions go, you're dreaming if you don't believe that Jayyousi and Co haven't been tortured (likely narco-interrogated at the very least) prior to delivering these statements to the Jordanian people. According to the Reuters story, all of the men shown on TV had bruises and the like, suggesting that at the very least they've had the shit beaten out of them. Judging from the experience that the GID has in this regard, they're probably lucky they got off that light.

Lola:

Suleiman Darweesh, a Zarqawi aide who is now in Jordanian custody, set up a cell in Damascus to finance the Amman plot. My guess is that the Jordanians passed the intelligence along to their Syrian counterparts and that now the Syrians have decided to do some housecleaning. Syria has its vices, sponsorship of Hezbollah, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad among them, but they aren't involved with al-Qaeda for a number of reasons and an al-Qaeda affiliate uprising in Syria's colony of Lebanon was thwarted several years ago.

Failing that, it could be Kurdish nationalists that Syria has been cracking down on quite heavily over the last several months.

Assuming that it is Darweesh's buddies, my guess is that they decided to follow the example of their Spanish bretheren and go up in a blaze of glory rather than be taken prisoner. That all of this occurred near the Iranian embassy is also curious - were the terrorists trying to flee there and committed suicide after that route was blocked? We'll just have to wait and see for now ...

Dan: Splendid analysis, and I too think the Iranian embasy is a telling clue-- is there more data that supports an unholy alliance between the Iranian mullahs and Al-Qaeda? Other than the fact that Al-Sistani won't give Iran the time of day?

Twisterella:

The case for Iranian involvement with al-Qaeda, as I suspect that all but the most vehemently anti-war bloggers will agree, is exceedingly strong. There is a plausible argument to be made that bin Laden and al-Zawahiri were both in Iran as of October 2003 and Zarqawi runs back and forth there from Iraq depending on the security situation.

Check this out:

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2004/4/27/164917.shtml

Jordan WMD Plotter Confesses to Iraqi Involvement

"At least one of the al Qaida plotters arrested in Jordan earlier this month as part of a weapons of mass destruction plot that Jordanian officials say could have killed 80,000 people revealed on Monday that he was trained in Iraq before the U.S. invaded in March 2003 ..."

Tom:

I'm looking into this right now, but I wouldn't draw too many conclusions from it. Anybody who didn't believe that Ansar al-Islam was making some extremely nasty shit at Sergat and Khurmal is quite frankly speaking delusional and it's possible that any training that occurred was done in the region of Iraq outside of Saddam Hussein's control.

Dan:
Would cooperation between Iran an al-Qaeda be likely to cause strains between Iran and Syria?

I'd been assuming that Tehran and Damascus were coordinating to some extent over Iraq, given recent clashes on the Syria-Iraq border.

Or is Syria just letting Hezbollah and other assorted jihadis pass through, on the basis better them causing trouble there than getting peeeved at Syria?

John:

"Would cooperation between Iran an al-Qaeda be likely to cause strains between Iran and Syria?"

I can't answer that but there are no signs that Assad has been willing accomodate al-Qaeda to date and he has mercilessly crushed them when they rose up against his government in Lebanon. There is also the issue of what exactly the Syrians have been told about the Iranian sponsorship of al-Qaeda as Assad is the junior partner in the relationship.

"I'd been assuming that Tehran and Damascus were coordinating to some extent over Iraq, given recent clashes on the Syria-Iraq border."

I expect that's true. Syria is not actively assisting the jihadis, but it is more than willing to allow them to use the country as a transit point to Iraq so long as they not base their operations or carry out attacks in Syria.

"Or is Syria just letting Hezbollah and other assorted jihadis pass through, on the basis better them causing trouble there than getting peeeved at Syria?"

That appears to be the situation, in my view. However, the thwarted plot in Jordan would certainly at least oblige Syria to take some kind of action against the jihadis on their soil. However, this is all just speculation right now.

I think the media is generally suspicious of any WMD claim right now. I think there will actually have to be such an attack before they deem it anything more than conjecture of the sort we had during the invasion last year.

If Iran and al-Qaeda are in cahoots, it just doesn't make sense at all, since OBL & Co. have made it clear that Shiites are not Muslims according to their definition of Islam. What would the mullahs have to gain by cooperating with al-Qaeda?

INSIGHT MAGAZINE report "SADDAMS WMDS HAVE BEEN FOUND" provides excellent details on just how successful David Kay and his ISG had been in the search for Iraqi WMDS and other UN-illegal activities, successes which has been effectively downplayed or perverted by the allegedly nonpartisan anti-Bush medias. It must be remembered that Kay himself indicated his search would only cover the best 600 of the many 000's of known and suspected WMDS sites only inside Iraq proper, and exclusive of states outside Iraq which was not in the scope of his group's mission. Kay's controversial final report in the end only covered less than 1/2 of the 600 - the Kay Report hence covered only a MINORITY of a MINORITY sum of the gross-total, ergo it is fallacious or defective to argue that Kay affirmed they were or are no Iraqi WMDS, and there's more than enough evidencia in the Kay report for anyone to believe Saddam was lying about the extent of his WMD programs. The Israelis and their internationally esteemed and respected MOSSAD intel agency continue to insist that Saddam had secretly transferred the bulk of his WMD caches out of Iraq, mostly to Syria and Syrian-controlled Lebanon, and to include charges of secret transfers occurring under the label of UN-controlled food or commodities programs. The Leftmedias are looking or focusing only on Iraqi-labeled, Iraqi-manufactured, Iraqi-manned, and Iraqi-controlled WMDS, NOT on disguised WMDS or WMDS now under the control of non-Iraqi regimes, just a Republican Dubya and ONLY REPUBLICAN DUBYA has to explain why 9-11 occurred, or why ex-POTUS Bill Clinton is NOT justified in NOT explaining those failures in his Admin during the prosperous Clinton '90's which MIGHT had led to 9-11!? AL Qaeda and OBL may have declared fatwah-war against the USA during Bill Clinton's time, but only Dubya has to explain why Bill didn't do anyting or didn't need to do anyting!

Lola:

You can search bin Laden and al-Zawahiri's writings and public statements, but you will find them quite devoid of any sectarian tendencies. Zarqawi clearly does have some as a result of his SeS/LeJ indoctrination, but even these appear to be balanced against the organization's pragmatic and goal rather than rule-oriented mindset.

As far as what Iran gains from such an alliance, it appears to me that the benefits are three-fold: a proxy force that they can aim at America and safely disavow, a means to weaken neighboring Middle East states, and finally a way to fullfill the hardliners' fantasy ideology without ever actually placing the regime in jeopardy from the view of the more pragmatic members of the military and the security forces.

ANY FURTHER INFO ON KURDISH FACTIONS TAKING ON THE SYRIANS?

IS THE U.S. PROVIDING ASSISTANCE???

another buried story:

Iraqi pipeline attacks go unreported

My take on the plot. In short - the Jordanians and the terrorists have reasons to exagerrate the consequences of the attack. (Though interestingly, I note that Zarqawi says it wasn't supposed to be a chemical attack - that fits with what I think.) Had they pulled it off, it would have been big - perhaps a higher death toll than 9/11 - but not 80k people.

Also interesting is that a big event has been stopped, and world response has been, well, nothing.