Let me first start by saying Allah yer7am the dead Jordanian soldier that died yesterday in the attacks.
Now there are of course many unanswered questions at the moment and mostly just people making preconcieved notions of who did what and why. So I thought I’d offer some perspective as far as I can.
The main conclusions that have been drawn (by those who are either anti-islam, anti-alqueda and/or anti-jordanian regime) is that we are looking at an attack by islamic extremists who were targetting Jordan because of it’s “support” of the Iraqi war and/or its relationship with the United States and Israel.
So lets clear stuff up. People fail to realise that an attack on Jordanian soil by default means an attack on Jordanians, simply because this is where we mostly do our living. So to attack anything regardless of the intended target without resulting in Jordanian casualties (such as what has happened) is wishful thinking.
As far as religion is concerned, well I won’t get into it because I think to myself, here are a group of people who have launched rockets into a civilian area possibly under some religious influence…they’ve convinced themself of this and if anyone out there is willing to believe that religion is a cause well then that person would fall into their very same category of intelligence wouldn’t they?
But here is the important part…
The fact that it was rockets and not bombs suggests that this wasn’t exactly Sharm Al-Sheik. Bombs require more planning, bombs require a lack of security to have them put together, to install them in their targets, to detonate. Bombs offer effeciency, the human flaws are low. Rockets suggest that our terrorists didn’t exactly have the luxery of the above, which could say something about how tough it was to pull this off.
The other bright side is the fact that Jordan tends to allow these things happen only once. I won’t be suprised if the security in Aqaba is tripled starting today. I WILL be suprised if this happens again, at least anytime soon. God willing it will not.
My best guess is that the culprits will be caught. It’s tough to get away with this kind of thing in Jordan.
Lastly, my plans to go to Aqaba next week have not been foiled.