Yahoo:

U.S. warns on travel to Jordan port city
By Suleiman al-Khalidi Suleiman Al-khalidi
Wed Sep 15, 4:29 pm ET

.AMMAN (Reuters) – The U.S. embassy in Jordan warned its citizens on Wednesday against traveling to the port city of Aqaba, citing an "imminent" threat, but Jordan said it was not aware of any immediate security risks.

The U.S. State Department said the warning was unlikely to prevent Secretary of State Hillary Clinton from traveling to Amman on Thursday.

The U.S. warning published at www.jordan.usembassy.gov says "credible information has been received regarding a possible imminent threat in the Gulf of Aqaba region.

"The U.S. Embassy recommends that all non-official and personal travel to Aqaba be deferred for at least the next 48 hours," the statement said without elaborating.

The state news agency quoted Ali Al Ayed, Minister of State for Media Affairs, as saying internal security conditions, based on government intelligence estimates, were "stable" and that no threats existed in Jordan, including in Aqaba.

Last month, the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv told U.S. citizens traveling to the Israeli Red Sea resort of Eilat that they needed to know where the nearest bomb shelter was.

The warning angered the Israeli government which said the alert should have applied to neighboring Aqaba.

Diplomats say the latest travel advisory was prompted by heightened security concerns after rockets from Egypt's Sinai, where Islamist militants have operated in the past, hit Israel's and Jordan's Red Sea ports on August 2, killing a Jordanian civilian and injuring three others.

Clinton, who is in the Middle East for talks on the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, was due in the Jordanian capital on Thursday.

"We don't think that this will ... influence the secretary's visit to Jordan in any way. But obviously we'll work with Jordan to sort through the threat information that we have and compare notes with Jordan's perspective on it," U.S. State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley told a news briefing.

ROCKETS

Ayed said the U.S. embassy warning was directed at American citizens and noted that the latest rocket attacks that landed in a prime Aqaba hotel district were fired from outside Jordan. Police from both Israel and Jordan said the rockets were fired from Egypt's Sinai desert peninsula.

Al Qaeda has been active in Jordan and has carried out attacks there in the past.

In April 2005, the Abdullah Azzam Brigades militant group linked to al Qaeda claimed responsibility for a failed attempt to strike two U.S. warships in Aqaba with rockets. The rockets hit a warehouse and a hospital, killing one Jordanian soldier.

The attack which narrowly missed the USS Ashland and its sister ship the USS Kearsarge was the most serious on U.S. targets in the staunchly pro-Western kingdom since the killing of U.S. diplomat Lawrence Foley in Amman in 2002.

Jordanian militants linked to al Qaeda have been blamed for several plots in recent years to attack Western targets and government installations in the kingdom.

Jordan's close U.S. ties and its 1994 peace accord with Israel are unpopular with many in the conservative kingdom and there is strong support for Islamist militants in some areas.