© 2001 WorldNetDaily.com
THURSDAY
AUGUST 2
2001

An estimated 800 Iraqi commandos, the bulk of the force that stole into Jordan two weeks ago, remain pinned down in Jordan’s eastern desert in two places – around Wadi Athner and near the town of Ruwayshid, report the intelligence sources of DEBKA-Net-Weekly.

The incursion into Jordan by Iraqi military forces was first reported jointly by Debka and WorldNetDaily last week. Official sources in the U.S. and Israeli governments have denied any knowledge of the Iraqi incursion to WorldNetDaily.

However, small groups of the first batch have since made their way further west. Around 15-25 of these intelligence-trained crack commandos appear to have entered Amman. Another group was on its way to the West Bank when halted in a joint operation by Jordanian and Israeli military intelligence, the reports say.

The Iraqi threat has engendered an unprecedented level of cooperation between the two intelligence services, to the point that Jordanian units entered Israel and Israeli units were deployed in Jordan in a shared operation.

Amman sources disclose that a joint Jordanian-Israeli effort kept a mortar-bomber crew, made up of up to a dozen Iraqi commando-agents and their Jordanian Hamas allies, from reaching the West Bank and bombing the central Israeli town of Kfar Saba, according to Debka.

On July 22 and 23, Jordanian military intelligence units tracked the squad to the northern suburbs of Amman. They were heading for the Jordan River crossing into the West Bank. Jordan turned to Israel for help. Israeli military intelligence field units joined the chase through tough, hilly terrain, as hunters and prey moved toward the Jordanian city of Jarash. Iraqi intelligence had previously laid down caches of weapons, including mortars and a large quantity of mortar shells, which the squad stopped to collect along the way.

Part of the squad was picked up before it could cross the Jordan River. The rest were allowed to cross into the West Bank and watched to see who their contacts were. Israeli units were part of the pursuit team inside Jordan; Jordanian units took part in the chase in the West Bank.

Interrogation of the squad after all its members were taken into custody revealed their assignment as being to reach the Palestinian-ruled city of Qalqilya and fire mortar shells at nearby Kfar Saba. In the Gaza Strip, where Palestinian mortar bombardments of Jewish settlements are a daily occurrence, volleys are usually limited to no more than seven shells. But the Iraqi-Hamas squad planned clusters of several dozen shells to land simultaneously in different parts of Kfar Saba.

Sources also report on July 30 and 31, Iraqi warplanes resumed their flights in Jordanian airspace. In a departure from routine, the aircraft took off from bases in the Baghdad area as well as from the big Iraqi air base of Al-Baghdadi, south of the Iraqi city of Rotba. Two of these fighters spent several minutes in Amman airspace on Tuesday before turning back into Iraq.

This over-flight, say military sources, was the most dangerous development since the Iraqi crossing into Jordan two weeks ago. It was Iraq’s reply to the Israeli warplanes on patrol over Jordan since then, and gave Iraq the opportunity to test its newly upgraded command and control systems near Baghdad..

Initially, Iraqi planes that took off from Al-Baghdadi received orders and vectors from antiquated systems in operation at the air base. The equipment was wide open to U.S. and Israeli surveillance and electronic warfare systems, forcing Iraqi planes to turn tail, bug out of Jordanian airspace and land immediately at Al-Baghdadi whenever U.S. or Israeli warplanes or reconnaissance aircraft appeared on the scene.

But the planes taking off from bases near Baghdad receive their operational orders from the new command and control systems deployed north of Baghdad, near the town of Al-Qazamiya. U.S. and British planes attacked the systems back in March to try to keep them off-line. The Iraqis quickly repaired the damage and Russian and Chinese technicians who assembled the equipment handed over the brand new facilities to their hosts in May.

The systems are fiber-optic and enemy monitoring of their operation is nearly impossible.

The mission to Amman by Iraqi warplanes guided by the command and control systems at al-Qazamiya was the first Iraqi test of how the new equipment fares under real conditions against U.S. electronic systems on U.S. warships in the Red Sea and against Israeli systems.

Jordan is also faced with the immediate problem of the newly arrived crack commandos hiding in Amman linking up with 75-100 Iraqi intelligence agents already operating undercover in the city, all highly trained for subversion and terrorist operations.

It was this network that carried out assassination attempts against Israeli diplomats in Amman last March and May.

Jordan and Israel are aware that one purpose of the creeping infiltration of Iraqi commandos and agents into Amman is to create a jumping off base for Iraqi fighters to reach the West Bank. Once there, they will establish a communications center linking Baghdad with the main Palestinian cities.

Signs of recent Iraqi penetrations in the West Bank have turned up in recent months. Iraqi flags are hoisted at public rallies and riots on the West Bank, which the Iraqis are thought to be active in stirring up.

The success of the joint Israeli-Jordanian operation in foiling the Hamas-Iraqi squad – and the good working relations developed between Israeli and Jordanian intelligence units – brought Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer to Amman on July 27. He called on King Abdullah and conferred with top Jordanian intelligence commanders.

With him was a high-level team consisting of Deputy Defense Minister Dalia Rabin-Pelosoff, Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Shaul Mofaz, his Deputy Maj. Gen. Moshe Yaalon, Army Intelligence Chief Maj. Gen. Amos Malka, Air Force Commander Maj. Gen. Dan Halutz and Operations Chief Maj. Gen. Giora Eiland.

The Israeli team received some surprising information from Jordanian intelligence in reply to a vexing question: Which Palestinian faction was providing Iraqi agents infiltrating the West Bank with their infrastructure? According to the Jordanians, their host was none other than Tawfiq Tirawi, head of Palestinian General Intelligence service on the West Bank and deputy of Mohamed el Hindi. There was no information on whether Yasser Arafat was fully in the picture.

The Israeli visitors and their Jordanian hosts also inspected the Wadi Athner sector where Jordanian troops clashed with Iraqi intruders from July 19-21, say Debka's military sources. Both sides suffered casualties, but the number is unknown.

During the tour, the top Israeli brass were told that King Abdullah ordered his forces not to attack the trapped Iraqi commandos in the Jordanian desert, hoping they will withdraw to Iraq of their own accord. But the Jordanian army will act if fresh attempts are detected to infiltrate Amman.

The Jordanians also reported that an Iraqi brigade numbering around 3,000 soldiers is poised on the Iraqi side of the border, ready to cross into the kingdom at short notice. They show no signs of movement as yet.

Debka's sources in Washington, Jerusalem and Amman say the Israeli and Jordanian Special Forces deployed to meet the Iraqi threat as continuing to maintain the highest level of alert. Official sources in Washington and Jerusalem deny any knowledge of the Iraqi troop movements in Jordan to WorldNetDaily.