Rockets narrowly miss US warships in Jordan

AMMAN - Katyusha rockets were fired at two US warships in Jordan's Red Sea Aqaba port on Friday, narrowly missing their targets, and Jordanian security officials said they believed al Qaeda was involved in the attack.

The rockets hit a warehouse, a hospital and the nearby Israeli port of Eilat. The only casualty was a Jordanian soldier on guard duty at a warehouse, who was killed.

Jordanian security officials told Reuters most initial indications pointed to the involvement of al Qaeda, which has been blamed in recent years for several plots to launch attacks on Western targets and government installations.

"We believe al Qaeda was behind this," a security source said.

Jordanian Interior Minister Awni Yarfas told Reuters the rocket launcher was a crude device, which appeared to indicate its users "had not properly prepared for the attack."

Jordanian security forces later sealed off the derelict Shalala quarter of Aqaba, overlooking the port, and carried out house-to-house searches, security officials said.

The hundreds of police and troops involved in the operation were looking for Arabs, including Iraqis, Syrians, Egyptians and Jordanians, thought to have fired the rockets.

A Jordanian security source said earlier the search was focused on three men. "We are searching for a Syrian and two Iraqis who are in Aqaba and used Kuwaiti (car) number plates," the source said.

Another source said the rockets were launched from a warehouse leased a few days ago by three Iraqis and an Egyptian.

Jordan's close US ties and its 1994 peace with Israel are unpopular with many in the conservative kingdom and there is strong support for Islamist militants in some areas.

Immediately after the attack, the two US ships weighed anchor and headed for open water. US warships regularly dock at Aqaba, a logistics hub and main supply route for US forces in Iraq.

It was the most serious attack on US targets in Jordan since the killing of US diplomat Lawrence Foley in Amman in 2002.

Israeli Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz said "one or two" Katyusha rockets had fallen in the airport and hotel area of Eilat, about 9km across the Red Sea from Aqaba, but no one was hurt.

The US Fifth Fleet in Bahrain said one missile narrowly missed the USS Ashland, an amphibious warfare ship designed to transport marines and launch assault landing craft and helicopters.

"I can confirm that a rocket flew over the bow of USS Ashland and the rocket impacted in the roof of a warehouse. No sailors or marines were injured," Commander Jeff Breslau of the US Fifth Fleet told Reuters.

"It's pretty safe to conclude that they were probably trying to hit one or both of the ships," he said.

Breslau said the Ashland and its sister ship the USS Kearsarge, both based in Norfolk, Virginia, had left the port immediately after the attack. "They'll be out to sea in the area and will decide what to do from there," he said.

The Kearsarge, which carries Harrier jump jets and about 2000 personnel, is the command ship of an Amphibious Ready Group and was involved in the 1995 rescue of US Air Force pilot Captain Scott O'Grady after he was shot down over Bosnia.

The US Fifth Fleet spokesman said the attack was the first on a US vessel in the region since April 2004, when three US servicemen were killed on the USS Firebolt while it was defending an Iraqi oil platform.

Oil climbed back above US$64 after the Aqaba attack, though Jordan is not a crude oil exporter, and US crude later rose to US$65.30 a barrel when Ecuador halted crude exports.

US officials said they were cooperating with Jordan and Israel in the investigation into the attack. "Both countries are strong allies in the war on terror and we will continue to co-operate closely," a US State Department spokesman said.

Egyptian sources said the Suez Canal Authority tightened security along the banks of the waterway after the attack.

Last year a Yemeni court sentenced two al Qaeda militants to death for the 2000 bombing of the US destroyer Cole which killed 17 sailors in the Yemeni port Aden. It later commuted one defendant's term to 15 years' jail.

- REUTERS