This is the second time in recent months that Jordan has been the target of an attack believed to have been ordered by Abu Musaab al-Zarqawi . The first was unsuccessful ? a botched attempt to strike US ships off the port of Aqaba and the nearby Israeli port of Eilat with katyusha rockets . The second attack, a successful strike, targeted three US-owned hotels on November 9 .

Prior to these two incidents, the Jordanian authorities had enjoyed respectable success in thwarting the devastating machinations of Zarqawi, a Jordanian native who grew up to hate the Hashemite regime. A chemical weapons attack on Jordanian government and security services targets was thwarted in 2004 (Intel Report forthcoming), as was a plot to murder American archaeologists in the country . A Millennium series of attacks on the Radisson SAS and various Christian sites in Jordan was thwarted in 1999 , and Zarqawi himself did a lengthy prison stint when security forces caught him planning to attack Jordanian government targets in 1992 (Intel Report forthcoming).