Jordan: Iranian contractors botched attack on Israeli convoy

[Paparock]

Jordan: Iranian contractors botched attack on Israeli convoy

http://israelinsider.ning.com/profil...an-contractors


Last week's failed attempt on the lives of Israeli diplomats in Jordan was apparently carried out on instructions from Teheran, sources close to Jordan's General Intelligence Department (GID) revealed on Monday, the Jerusalem Post reported.

The sources said the GID was investigating the possibility that the explosives used in the attack had been smuggled into the kingdom by Iranian diplomats. The attack itself was apparently carried out by local al-Qaida supporters who received money and explosives from Iran, the sources said. On Monday, Al-Arabiya reported that an Amman taxi driver was arrested on suspicion of involvement in the bombing.

According to the sources, the GID believes that the attack came in response to the killing of Iranian scientist Prof. Massoud Ali Muhammadi in Teheran last week. Ali Muhammadi was killed by a remote-controlled bomb on a motorcycle. On Monday, Iran's Interior Minister Mostafa Muhammad Najjar vowed to take revenge on Israel over Ali-Muhammadi's assassination.

Analysis in the Jerusalem Post is here.

[Paparock]

Targeting Jordan

By Aaron Mannes

http://counterterrorismblog.org/2010...ing_jordan.php

An important detail of the December 30 attack on the CIA Camp Chapman is that the Jordanian intelligence officer killed, Ali bin Zaid, was a relative to Jordanian King Abdullah II. It cannot be a coincidence that a cousin of the king was personally in charge of this highly sensitive portfolio. This illustrates broad points about how much of Middle Eastern politics is in fact a “family affair,” but it also has specific implications for the Kingdom of Jordan.

Clan Tectonics
Much of what passes for politics in the greater Middle East are in fact driven by family, clan, and tribal interests. There is a famous Arabic expression:

I against my brother;
I and my brothers against my cousins;
I and my brothers and my cousins against the world.

In other words, my family against another family, my clan against another clan, my tribe against another tribe and so forth. This is a fundamental organizing principle in the societies of the greater Middle East. (It has also existed in the West – consider Romeo and Juliet, the Guelphs and the Ghibellines, and the Hatfields and McCoys – but has been ameliorated by competing values and institutions.) Religious and political splits (such as the Sunni-Shia) are often based heavily on clan affairs – the real tectonic forces of the region.

Read the full post here.