2 Held in Slaying of Diplomat

Security forces have arrested two suspected Al Qaeda members in the assassination of a U.S. diplomat here two months ago, asserting that the men were planning a series of attacks across Jordan on embassies, celebrities, airliners and other targets, authorities said Saturday.

Laurence Foley, 60, was gunned down outside his home by two men who trained at Osama bin Laden’s terror camps in Afghanistan and said they took orders from one of the world’s most wanted men, Abu Musab Zarqawi, an alleged Al Qaeda lieutenant dispatched to bring “holy war” to Western Europe, authorities said.

Foley’s death was supposed to be the first act in a reign of terror across a nation that is a strategically important U.S. ally, Jordanian officials said. They said they had seized surface-to-air missiles, hand grenades, tear gas canisters and automatic weapons, all calling cards for Al Qaeda and each one marked for use in Jordan.

Information Minister Mohammed Adwan said Foley, a native of Boston who had later lived in Oakland, Calif., was killed because he “just happened to be an easy target.”

After his death, security forces swept through Amman, the capital, detaining dozens of Islamic sympathizers. The two men charged in the killing -- Salem Saad bin Suweid, a Libyan, and Yasser Fathy Ibrahim, a Jordanian -- were arrested recently, and authorities said both confessed to Foley’s killing during interrogation.

The assassination came at a difficult time for Jordan, a nation squeezed in a tense and volatile region. On its western border, the Palestinian intifada has entered its third year, while to the east, there may soon be a war between the United States and Iraq. Jordan’s economy is bad, unemployment is high and the population is restive.

Even before Foley’s death, King Abdullah II, a young and largely untested leader, had increasingly turned to his security forces to keep order.

But that apparently did not stop Al Qaeda from breaching Jordan’s defenses, including a sophisticated intelligence network considered among the best in the region.

Adwan said the Libyan suspect slipped into the country using a phony Tunisian passport and, with his Jordanian accomplice, rented an apartment in a town outside Amman. They worked alone, Adwan said, and not as part of a terrorist cell.

On Oct. 28, the information minister said, the men drove a car they had rented from an individual -- who had no idea of their plans -- to the quiet residential neighborhood where Foley lived. He was an administrator for the U.S. Agency for International Development and did not travel with a heavy security escort.

Authorities said Bin Suweid hid behind Foley’s parked Mercedes-Benz with a 7-millimeter handgun equipped with a silencer. He shot the diplomat seven times in the head and body, then jumped in the getaway car, driven by Ibrahim.

Adwan said the authorities not only exacted a confession from the men but recovered the weapon used in the slaying. He added that the suspects had received $18,000 from Al Qaeda and were expecting an additional $50,000.

The killing sent a chill through Amman. Despite intense anti-American sentiment stemming primarily from U.S. support for Israel -- and from opposition to an attack on Iraq -- the city had been considered safe for its 9,000 American residents.

Since the slaying, the United States has withdrawn the several dozen Peace Corps workers who had been here and has authorized voluntary evacuations of all family members of U.S. Embassy employees as well as of nonessential embassy employees. No one has accepted the offer, but that is at least partly due to the way the program works: Those who leave cannot return until the government deems the situation improved, and that could take months.

The anxiety had to deepen for the authorities when, according to the official account, the two suspects confessed to being in league with Zarqawi, a Jordanian considered to be among the top two dozen leaders of Al Qaeda.

Zarqawi was convicted in absentia in connection with a plot to bomb tourist sites in Amman during the millennium celebration. He is believed by intelligence agencies to be an important planner and expert in mixing poisons. The German newsmagazine Der Spiegel recently quoted intelligence officials as saying Al Qaeda had tapped Zarqawi to orchestrate terror attacks in Europe.

The lingering anxiety was reflected in the low-key manner in which the authorities announced the arrests. For Jordan, the announcement represented a good news/bad news scenario. The good news was that authorities found the men they say killed Foley. The bad news was that Al Qaeda was operating in Jordan. The terror network has threatened to attack any nation that gives support to the United States, should it attack Iraq, and the threat has disquieted U.S.-leaning governments from Saudi Arabia to Egypt.

“It is very strange to have terrorism in Jordan,” said Abdul Latif Arabiyat, leader of the Islamic Action Front, the political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood. “It is bad for us to have innocent people killed here. Mr. Foley was under our security, under our umbrella. This was a very painful thing for us, and everybody in Jordan has condemned that death.”

Foley, a married father of three, had been working on projects to deliver clean drinking water and health care to poor Jordanians and provide loans to small businesses. He had worked for the Peace Corps in India and the Philippines and carried out USAID assignments in Bolivia, Peru and Zimbabwe.

At the time of Foley’s killing, U.S. Ambassador Edward W. Gnehm Jr. condemned it as a “cowardly, criminal act” but did not call it terror-related. On Saturday, the U.S. Embassy issued a statement but refused to answer questions.

The statement said, in part: “Larry Foley was a man dedicated to improving the lives of others. He loved his work and his country. We continue to honor him and the work he did here to help the Jordanian people.”

In Washington, State Department spokesman Lou Fintor said: “We welcome the Jordanian announcement earlier today of the arrest of two men in connection with the tragic killing of USAID official Laurence Foley. We deeply appreciate the excellent support and cooperation the Jordanian government has provided throughout the investigation, and we continue to consult closely with them regarding these arrests.”

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Times staff writer Edmund Sanders in Washington contributed to this report.