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Jordan arrests main suspect in rocket attack

By Times wire
Published August 23, 2005

AMMAN, Jordan - The Jordanian government said Monday that it had arrested a prime suspect in the rocket attack on two American warships last week in Aqaba, and for the first time it directly tied the attack to Iraqi insurgents.

Late Monday, state-run Jordanian television announced the arrest and identified the suspect as Mohammed Hassan Abdullah al-Sihly, a Syrian. The report said that Sihly, who it said was in charge of planning the attack, was part of a terrorist cell that included his two sons, Abdullah and Abdul-Rahman, and an Iraqi, identified as Mohammed Hamid Hussein.

The cell was reported to be directed by an unnamed insurgent group in Iraq.

Earlier this month, the statement said, the men smuggled seven Katyusha rockets from Iraq into Amman in a Mercedes fitted with an additional gas tank, where the rockets were hidden. The men were believed to be carrying counterfeit passports, which they used to rent a second-floor workshop about 5 miles from the docks.

On Friday morning, three rockets were fired from the workshop, missing the Kearsarge and the Ashland, but killing a Jordanian soldier and landing across the border in Israel.

By the time the rockets were fired, however, the men were gone: The government report said the rocket launcher was set to fire on a timer. By Friday night, the three Iraqis had made their way past numerous security checkpoints, traveling from Aqaba to Amman, and then across the border and into Iraq.

High tides displace 20,000 people in Bangladesh

CHITTAGONG, Bangladesh - Unusually high tides partially submerged the islands of Sandwip and Kutubdia on Monday in southeastern Bangladesh, forcing nearly 20,000 residents to flee their flooded homes, a relief official said. No one was hurt or missing.

The weather bureau said a depression brewing in the Bay of Bengal and the pull of a full moon were likely causing the high tides, which also breached protective mud embankments and inundated low-lying areas of Chittagong, 135 miles southeast of the capital, Dhaka.

Skull found in Georgia said to be 1.8-million years old

TBILISI, Georgia - Archaeologists in the former Soviet republic of Georgia have unearthed a skull they say is 1.8-million years old - part of a find that holds the oldest traces of humankind's closest ancestors ever found in Europe.

The skull from an early member of the genus Homo was found Aug. 6 and unearthed Sunday in Dmanisi, an area about 60 miles southeast of the capital, Tbilisi, said David Lortkipanidze, director of the Georgian National Museum, who took part in the dig.

In total, five bones or fragments believed to be about the same age have been found in the area, including a jawbone discovered in 1991, Lortkipanidze said. The skull, however, was in the best condition of the five, and was sent to the museum for further study.

Researchers said the findings in Georgia were about 1-million years older than any widely accepted prehuman remains in Western Europe and were the oldest found outside Africa. The discoveries have provided additional evidence that human ancestors left Africa a half-million years or more earlier than scientists had previously thought.

Japanese prime minister sets date to step down

TOKYO - Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said Monday that he will step down in September 2006 at the end of his term as head of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party even if his coalition wins upcoming elections.

Earlier this month, Koizumi dissolved the lower house of Parliament and called elections after rebels in his own party helped the upper house reject legislation to privatize the postal service, the centerpiece of the premier's reformist program.

Koizumi, who has been prime minister since April 2001, has indicated his intention to step down at the end of his term, but Monday's comment was the first of such kind since he called the elections, set for Sept. 11. Koizumi has been one of Japan's longest-serving prime ministers.

Aruban leader says there were mistakes in case

ORANJESTAD, Aruba - Aruba's prime minister believes that authorities made mistakes at the start of the investigation of the Natalee Holloway case, a government spokesman said Monday.

Beth Holloway Twitty, who has often criticized authorities on the Dutch Caribbean island since her 18-year-old daughter disappeared on May 30, met in private with Prime Minister Nelson Oduber over the weekend.

"I think that he's in absolute agreement that the initial investigation has been so badly botched," Holloway Twitty said on NBC's Today show.

She said the prime minister also told her that Aruba needs to review the first stages of the investigation to find out "who let this go wrong."

Government spokesman Ruben Trapenberg said Monday the prime minister had expressed concerns about the initial investigation, though he used more cautious language.

"The prime minister agreed that in the beginning the case could have been better handled," Trapenberg said. "He didn't say it had been "botched."'

[Last modified August 23, 2005, 02:45:30]