Jordan announced Wednesday that it had arrested 20 suspects and seized stockpiles of Hamas weapons, including dozens of grenades and Iranian-made Katyusha rockets. Three Hamas members were shown on Jordanian television Thursday confessing to planning to kill senior Jordanian intelligence officials and stockpiling weapons in the Kingdom.
The Hamas men who appeared on Jordanian television were Ayman Naji Daraghmeh, 34, who confessed to being instructed by Hamas to monitor a particular Jordanian intelligence official who his Hamas handler said "harmed the movement." He said he managed to have pictures taken of the official, which were transferred to Hamas in Syria. He also said he received training in resisting interrogation methods while in Syria.
The second seen confessing was Ahmad Abu Rabee, aged 27, who said that Daraghmeh had instructed him to purchase weapons and monitor an intelligence department bus in Amman – which he did - for the purpose of attacking it in the future.
The third Hamas man to confess was Islamic preacher Ahmed Abu Thiyab, who obtained weapons and ammunition – some from Iraq – on behalf of Hamas in Jordan. He was also instructed to monitor foreign tourists in the Aqaba resort town.
Hamas chairman and PA prime minister Ismail Haniyah denied that his terror group was involved. "We are surprised by this media escalation in Jordan," he told reporters. "There has been no change in Hamas's policies toward Jordan and what is going on in the media is not acceptable to us."
King Abdullah II said that Jordan's "historical relationship with our Palestinian brothers" will not be shaken by the Hamas terrorist plot. "It will not stop Jordan from pursuing its national role towards them leading to their full rights, foremost of which is the establishment of an independent Palestinian state," he added. An overwhelming majority of Jordan's citizens consider themselves to be Palestinians, as they or their parents fled their villages in Israel since its founding in 1948. The Hashemite regime is extremely concerned that the Palestinian majority will overthrow the royal family and turn Jordan into the Palestinian state it was originally intended to be under the League of Nations mandate.
Hamas went to great lengths to deny the whole affair. Hamas spokesman Osama Hamdan accused Jordan of fabricating the whole story. In a statement to Al-Arabiya, he said, "It is not difficult for the Jordanian intelligence service to get a person to dig in front of the cameras and extract weapons that have been buried by an unknown body. I wouldn't be surprised if the intelligence service itself did this. It is not difficult to bring people, torture them, punish them and force them ... to record such statements."
Jordanian government spokesman Nasser Judeh responded to the Hamas denials in a statement to the Associated Press: "Why would we fabricate such a matter, which is a serious threat to Jordanian national security? They asked for evidence. When we show them the evidence, they say it's fabricated."
Hamas foreign minister Mahmoud al-Zahar then offered to visit Jordan to attempt to patch things up with the Hashemites. Al-Zahar's visit was cancelled last month after Hamas weapons caches in the Kingdom were discovered. "We are ready to visit Jordan now to defuse this crisis and to put an end to its negative consequences on the two peoples," he said.