Amman
Jordan’s government said this week that it had broken up an al Qaida plot to kill as many as 80,000 people by detonating trucks filled with 20 tons of explosives and toxic chemicals. The blast would have created a mile-wide chemical cloud that would have enveloped the U.S. Embassy, the headquarters of Jordanian intelligence, and the prime minister’s office, the government said. In a series of raids, Jordanian security forces killed four suspected al Qaida members, arrested three, and seized a huge cache of explosives, nerve gas, sulfuric acid, and other poisonous chemicals. U.S. intelligence officials told CNN that they believed the Jordanian plot was a “big deal.”
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
Viktor Orban: is time up for Europe's longest-serving premier?Today's Big Question Hungarian PM's power is under threat 'but not in the way – or from the people – one might expect'
-
Operation Rubific: the government's secret Afghan relocation schemeThe Explainer Massive data leak a 'national embarrassment' that has ended up costing taxpayer billions
-
Melania Trump's intervention on UkraineIn The Spotlight The first lady has been linked to the president's U-turn on sending arms to Kyiv
