Al Qaida plot foiled

last updated 8 January 2015

Amman

Jordanian police this week killed three suspected terrorists who were allegedly planning to set off a massive bomb in the Jordanian capital. Government officials said the bomb could have killed at least 20,000 people and flattened buildings up to half a mile away. The three men were believed to have links to a terrorist group that earlier plotted to attack the prime minister’s office with a chemical bomb. Several members of that group who were arrested last month said they had been following the orders of Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, one of Osama bin Laden’s lieutenants. The government said the militants, who were killed in a shootout after they refused to surrender, had crossed into the country from Syria.