Wednesday, April 19, 2006

Jordan accuses Hamas of smuggling weapons

From Ynet News 19/4/06, by Associated Press (this is good news because Jordan's geography and demography make it a key to alleviating the growing humanitarian crisis of Palestinian Arabs who have been pawns and acnnon fodder for too long)...

Jordan puts off visit by Palestinian Foreign Minister and Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Zahar ... because activists of his Hamas party had been smuggling missiles and other weapons into the kingdom.

Government spokesman Nasser Judeh ... told The Associated Press that "missiles, explosives and automatic weapons were seized in the last couple of days." Hamas activists had managed to smuggle "such dangerous weapons into the country" and store them, he said. He declined to say whether the activists had been arrested.

...In a separate statement to the official Petra news agency, Judeh said Jordanian security services had observed Hamas activists "exploring several vital (potential) targets" in the capital, Amman, and other cities. He did not elaborate.

Jordan, which signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1994, maintains a tough line on militants and once expelled the current leader of Hamas, Khaled Mashaal, for his activities.

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