Al Qaeda inmates free all 7 police hostages taken in riots in three Jordanian jails in return for no punishment

debkafile‘s counter-terror sources report: coordinated riots by erupted Wed. March 1, in a wing of Jwaida jail in Amman, as well as Swaqa and Qafgafa prisons, which hold more than 150 detainees. Hundreds of Jordanian special forces troops fought to put down the riots. Casualties are reported on both sides.
The outbreak began at Swaqa prison when la heavy Jordanian contingent came to transfer to another facility the two al Qaeda terrorists who assassinated USAID diplomat Laurence Foley in Oct. 2002: Salkim bin Suwaid, a Libyan, and Yasser Freihat, a Jordanian. Both are under sentence of death. Several prisoners attacked the troops claiming the pair was being taken out for execution. Swaqa cells also hold Azmi Jayusi, a Zarqawi aide who was sentenced to death this month for leading a chemical attack plot in April 2004.
In no time, the violence spread to the Juwaida and Qalqafa jails.
debkafile‘s sources add: Jordanian prisons holding al Qaeda terrorists are equipped with exceptionally tough security measures. The outbreak of a riot in three of these facilities bares an intelligence lapse four months after al Qaeda bombers caught Jordanian security unawares by hitting a string of Amman hotels and killing 57 people.
The three outbreaks Wednesday indicate that their inmates were connected by an external communications system missed by the authorities.
Jordan has denied it was on the list of foreign facilities holding some of the CIA’s al Qaeda suspects for interrogation. However, debkafile‘s counter-terror sources have confirmed these allegations – in particular in the case of Jordan. It is not clear if these detainees took part in the riot although it occurred on the fifth day of a jail riot in Kabul’s central prison in Afghanistan.