Jordan finds Katyusha rocket launcher
Interior Minister Awni Yirfas says authorities have found the rocket launcher used in the Katyusha attack on Aqaba and Eilat; continue to search for those responsible
A katyusha rocket fired from neighboring Jordan landed near the airport in the southern town of Eilat around 8:45 a.m. Friday. No injuries were reported in the attack but a car was damaged.
At about the same time, two more rockets were fired at an American ship, the USS Ashland, which was docked at the Jordanian port town of Aqaba. A military hospital was also targeted.
The rockets narrowly missed the vessels, hitting a warehouse on the pier. A Jordanian soldier was killed, and a second soldier was injured.
"We have found the rocket launcher in the warehouse from where they fired," Yirfas told The Associated Press Saturday in what marked one of the first key breakthroughs in the investigation.
"The investigation is still underway and issues related to it will remain secret so it would not harm the process," Yirfas said. "I cannot give you the names or say if we are looking for the perpetrators in the desert or any other place."
Jordanian security forces are hunting for six people, including one Syrian and several Egyptians and Iraqis, who are believed to have escaped in a vehicle with Kuwaiti license plates after firing the rockets.
King Abdullah condemns attack
Mystery surrounds the source of the rockets, several thousand of which are believed to be in the possession of Hizbullah, which is backed by Iran and Syria.
Jordanian officials have not yet commented on where they think the rockets originated or who might have provided them.
An Al-Qaeda-linked group, the Abdullah Azzam Brigades, said in an Internet statement that it staged the attack, but the claim could not be authenticated.
The same group was among several militant organizations that claimed responsibility for terror bombings in three Egyptian Sinai Peninsula resorts during the past year, which killed around 100 people.
Jordan's King Abdullah II, who is in Russia on a state visit, condemned Friday's attacks.
"This criminal attack will not deter Jordan from carrying out the true message of Islam which terrorists are trying to distort," Abdullah said in a statement carried by the state-run Petra news agency.
