Timeline Jordan
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Jordan is about the size of New Jersey. It is home to
3 of the world’s most enthralling travel attractions: the Dead Sea, the
lost city of Petra, and the deserts of Wadi Rum.
(SSFC, 7/24/05, p.F5)
13000BC Early
Natufian settlements began in the Middle East according to
archeological evidence later found in Jordan. A drying climate from
10,800 BC to 9,500 BC made them nomadic again. A 2nd attempt to settle
began around 9.500 BC and became known as Pre-Pottery Neolithic.
(Econ, 6/27/09, p.86)
c10000BC Hunter gatherers settled for part of the
year at a site later called Wadi Hammeh in the Jordan Valley.
(NH, 11/1/04, p.15)
9,400BC-9,200BC In 2006 researchers reported the discovery of nine
carbonized fig fruits stored in Gilgal I, an early Neolithic village,
located in the Lower Jordan Valley, which dated to this time.
(Reuters, 6/2/06)
c7000BC The Ain Ghazal farming settlement in Jordan
dated to this time. It was uncovered in 1974 during road construction
near Amman.
(SSFC, 11/9/03, p.C7)
300BC-68BC The Dead Sea Scrolls of Qumran, Jordan,
date to this period. The scrolls are usually identified with the
Jewish-monkish cult, the Essenes, know for their pathological aversion
to stool. In 2004 Chicago Prof. Norman Golb authored “Who Wrote the
Dead Sea Scrolls.” In 2009 Israeli scholar Rachel Elior theorized that
the Essenes, did not exist. She suggested they were really the renegade
sons of Zadok, a priestly caste banished from the Temple of Jerusalem
by intriguing Greek rulers in 2nd century BC. When they left, they took
the source of their wisdom - their scrolls - with them.
(AM, Mar/Apr 97 p.74)(WSJ, 5/15/98, p.W11)(SFC,
9/6/04, p.A4)(TIME, 3/17/09)
300BC-68BC The Dead Sea Scrolls dating to this period
were discovered by Bedouin at the caves of Qumran in Jordan in 1947.
The scrolls predated the Christian gospels, but contained many
similarities. They also contained some differences from the traditional
(Masoretic) text of the Hebrew Bible. In 1955 Edmund Wilson published
"The Scrolls from the Dead Sea." In 1998 Hershel Shank published "The
Mystery and meaning of the Dead Sea Scrolls." From 1978-1998 over 6,000
books were written about the scrolls. The discovery date was later
contested as were many of the historic circumstances surrounding the
scrolls [see Jordan 1947].
(WSJ, 5/15/98, p.W11)(WSJ, 6/22/98, p.A20)
106CE Nabatae, whose capital was
Petra, became a Roman province under Trajan.
(WUD, 1994, p.948)(SFEM, 4/11/99, p.8)(AM, 3/04,
p.60)
230 The St. Georgeous Church was
built in Jordon. In 2008 archeologists found a cave under the church
with evidence that it was used as a church by 70 disciples of Jesus in
the first century after his death, which would make it the oldest
Christian site of worship in the world.
(AP, 6/11/08)
c293CE The Roman fort at Qasr Bashir, Castra
Praetorii Mobeni, was built under Aurelius Asclepiades, governorship of
Arabia.
(AM, 11/00, p.14)
363CE A devastating
earthquake leveled half the city of Petra, the principal city of
Nabatea.
(AP, 6/21/03)
632-661 The Rashidun Caliphate, also known as the
Rightly Guided Caliphate, comprising the first four caliphs in Islam's
history, was founded after Muhammad's death. At its height, the
Caliphate extended from the Arabian Peninsula, to the Levant, Caucasus
and North Africa in the west, to the Iranian highlands and Central Asia
in the east. It was the one of the largest empires in history up until
that time.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rashidun_Caliphate)
661 Muawija became caliph. He
moved the capital from Medina to Damascus. His followers were called
the Umayyads. Muawija was one of the soldiers who helped capture
Damascus and for 25 years he had served as governor of Syria. Muawija
began the practice of appointing his own son as the next caliph, and so
the Umayyads ruled for the next 90 years. Muslim forces expanded into
North Africa and completely conquered Persia. The Islamic Empire
continued to expand into Afghanistan and Pakistan. After the Omayyad
Caliphs conquered Damascus, they build the palace at Qasr Al-Kharaneh
(in Jordan) as a recreational lodge.
(ATC, p.67,78)SFEC, 4/11/99, p.9)
1187 Jul 4, In the Battle of
Hittin (Tiberias) Saladin defeated Reynaud of Chatillon. Salah al Din,
who ruled from his imperial seat in ancient Syria, defeated Christian
armies of the Crusaders and forced their retreat from the Holy Land.
The battle was depicted in a mosaic that was found and restored for the
palace of Pres, Hafez Assad of Syria. Saladin personally executed
Crusader Reynaud of Chatillon (b.1124/5). Reynaud of Chatillon, Lord of
Kerak, Jordan, had violated twice violated a tenuous truce and earlier
this year attacked a caravan of pilgrims returning from Mecca.
(WSJ, 9/30/96, p.A1)(Econ, 5/30/09,
p.24)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raynald_of_Chatillon)
1812 Swiss explorer Jean Louis
Burckhardt rediscovered the ancient city of Petra in present-day
Jordan. Burckhardt was a classic nineteenth-century adventurer, the
kind of man who would spend years polishing his disguise as an Arab so
he could pass unnoticed through the Middle East, a land not always
hospitable to curious Europeans. Under contract to the African
Association, a private group of wealthy men in Britain who sponsored
exploration, Burckhardt planned to cross the Sahara and seek the source
of the River Niger. He first perfected his traveling persona as an Arab
trader. On the way from Damascus toward Cairo he decided to take a look
inside valley in the hilly region north of the Red Sea, rumored to
contain the ancient ruins of a lost city. Burckhardt told his reluctant
guide that he had promised to sacrifice a goat at the tomb of the
prophet Aaron, which lay on a mountaintop inside the valley. Although
his guide grew increasingly suspicious of his charge’s interest in the
archeological wonders, Burckhardt's ruse allowed him to become the
first European to see Petra in a millennium.
(HNQ, 5/26/01)
1880 Jordan, Lebanon and Palestine
were part of Syria under Ottoman rule.
(Econ, 5/27/06, p.80)
1916 May 19, The Sykes-Picot
Agreement was a secret understanding between the governments of Britain
and France defining their respective spheres of post-World War I
influence and control in the Middle East. The boundaries of this
agreement still remains in much of the common border between Syria and
Iraq. Britain and France carved up the Levant into an assortment of
monarchies, mandates and emirates. The agreement enshrined Anglo-French
imperialist ambitions at the end of WW II. Syria and Lebanon were put
into the French orbit, while Britain claimed Jordan, Iraq, the Gulf
states and the Palestinian Mandate. Sir Mark Sykes (d.1919 at age 39)
and Francois Picot made the deal.
(WSJ, 2/27/00,
p.A17)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sykes-Picot_Agreement)
1918 Sep 27, Arab forces attacked
and seized Deraa (Jordan).
(ON, 10/05, p.8)
1920 Apr 20, Balfour Declaration
was recognized following a conference in San Remo, Italy. It was agreed
that a mandate to Britain should be formally given by the League of
Nations over an area, which in 2010 comprised Israel, Jordan and the
Golan Heights, to be called the "Mandate of Palestine". The Balfour
Declaration was to apply to the whole of the mandated territory. The
doctrine was named after British Foreign Secretary Arthur James
Balfour, who had first articulated it as a policy on 2 November 1917.
(www.ijs.org.au/The-Balfour-Declaration/default.aspx)
1921 At the Cairo Conference
Britain and France carved up Arabia and created Jordan under Emir
Abdullah; his brother Faisal became King of Iraq. France was given
influence over Syria and Jewish immigration was allowed into
Palestine. Faisal I died one year after independence and his son,
Ghazi I succeeded him.
(HNQ, 6/20/99)(SSFC, 10/14/01, p.D3)
1922 The West Bank became an
unallocated portion of the Palestine Mandate.
(SFC, 6/24/96, p.A19)
1923 May 25, Britain recognized
Transjordan with Abdullah as its leader.
(SC, 5/25/02)
1924 Mar 3, Kemal Ataturk forced
the abolition of the Muslim caliphate through the protesting assembly
and banned all Kurdish schools, publications and associations. This
ended the Ottoman Empire and created the modern Middle East, though
Iraq, Jordan, Syria and Saudi Arabia were still colonies of Britain and
France.
(WSJ, 2/11/99, p.A24)(SSFC, 10/14/01, p.A3)
1931 Mar 26, Iraq and Trans-Jordan
(Transjordan) signed a peace treaty.
(SS, 3/26/02)
1935 Nov 14, King Hussein ibn
Talal I of Jordan was born in Amman to Prince Talal bin Abdullah and
princess Zein al-Sharaf bint Jamil of the Hashemite dynasty. [see 1936]
(SFEC, 11/15/98, p.A19)(SFEC, 2/7/99, p.A22)(AP,
11/14/07)
1946 Mar 22, The British mandate
in Transjordan came to an end. Britain signed a treaty granting
independence to Jordan.
(AP, 3/22/97)(HN, 3/22/97)
1946 May 25, Transjordan (now
Jordan) gained independence from Britain and became a kingdom as it
proclaimed its new monarch, King Abdullah Ibn Ul-Hussein.
(AP, 5/25/97)(HN, 5/25/98)
1947 The Dead Sea Scrolls were
discovered by Bedouin at the caves of Qumran in Jordan. The scrolls
predated the Christian gospels, but contained many similarities. They
also contained some differences from the traditional (Masoretic) text
of the Hebrew Bible. In 1955 Edmund Wilson published "The Scrolls from
the Dead Sea." In 1998 Hershel Shank published "The Mystery and meaning
of the Dead Sea Scrolls." From 1978-1998 over 6,000 books were written
about the scrolls. The discovery date was later contested as were many
of the historic circumstances surrounding the scrolls. In 2010 Geza
Vermes authored “The Story of the Scrolls: The Miraculous Discovery and
the True significance of the Dead Sea Scrolls.”
(WSJ, 5/15/98, p.W11)(WSJ, 6/22/98, p.A20)(Econ,
2/20/10, p.82)
1948 Dec 8, Jordan annexed Arabic
Palestine. The old city of East Jerusalem came under Jordanian control
until 1968. Transjordan was given to a client Arab family, the
Hashenites (led by King Hussein’s grandfather), and was run out of
Mecca by the Saudis.
(SFC, 6/24/96, p.A19)(WSJ, 4/9/97, p.A14)(MC,
12/8/01)
1948-1949 Iraqi troops participated in the Arab
League invasion of the new state of Israel. Iraq joined Transjordan and
other Arab states to fight Israel. Most of Iraq’s 120,000 Jews fled to
Israel or the West.
(SFC, 2/24/98, p.A9)(SFC, 9/24/02, p.A10)
1949 Apr 3, Israel signed a
ceasefire agreement with Transjordan.
(www.wikipedia.org)
1949 Jun 2, Transjordan was
renamed the Hashemite Kingdom Jordan.
(TOH, 1982, p.1949)(SC, 6/2/02)
1950 Apr 24, Jordan annexed the
West Bank and offered citizenship to all Palestinians wishing to claim
it.
(SFC, 2/8/99, p.A6)
1951 Jul 20, Jordan's King
Abdullah Ibn Hussein was assassinated in Jerusalem by a
Palestinian extremist. Prince Hussein (15) witnessed the murder. Talal
became king with the assassination of his father, Abdullah ibn-Hussein,
who ruled when Jordan was a British mandate.
(AP, 7/20/97)(HN, 7/20/98)(SFC, 2/6/99, p.A13)(MC,
7/20/02)
1952 Jan 11, Jordan adopted a
constitution, which enshrined the king’s right to hire and fire
unelected prime ministers.
(Econ, 2/5/11,
p.32)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_Jordan)
1952 Jul 24, In Iraq-Jordan a
disgusted military overthrew the corrupt government of King Farouk.
(MC, 7/24/02)
1952 Aug 11, King Talal abdicated
the throne to Prince Hussein due to mental illness.
(SFC, 2/6/99, p.A13)
1953 May 2, Prince Hussein became
King Hussein (17) as he inherited the royal title from his father
Talal. King Hussein was installed on the throne after his father, King
Talal, had been declared insane.
(SFC, 1/23/99, p.A10)(SFC, 2/6/99, p.A13)(HNQ,
8/20/00)
1953 Oct 14, Ariel Sharon, who had
formed the elite Israeli commando unit "101" to fight Palestinian
guerrillas, led it in a raid against the Jordanian village of Qibya
killing some 70 civilians.
(SFC, 10/10/98, p.A8)(Econ, 12/16/06,
p.85)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qibya_massacre)
1953 Nov 16, The US joined in the
condemnation of Israel for its raid on Jordan.
(HN, 11/16/98)
1954 Oct 14, An Israeli act of
revenge in Qibiya, Jordan, killed 53.
(MC, 10/14/01)
1955 May 29, Jordan government of
Tewfik Abdul Huda resigned.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1956 Jul 25, Jordanians attacked
the UN Palestine truce.
(SC, 7/25/02)
1958 Feb 14, The Arab Federation
of Iraq and Jordan formed under Iraq’s Faisal II. King Hussein forged a
federation with Iraq, which was led by his cousin, Faisal II. The
federation failed when Faisal was killed during a revolution in Iraq.
(HNQ, 8/20/00)(MC, 2/14/02)
1958 Jul 14, In Iraq Gen. Abdel
Karim al-Kassem (Qassim) assassinated Faisal II with his son and
premier. Karim proclaimed a republic. Jordan’s King Hussein succeeded
Faisal. Faisal II, Hashemite King of Iraq (1939-58), was assassinated
at Baghdad and Noeri el-Said, premier of Iraq, was murdered. Mohammed
Hadid (d.1999 at 92) served as the first finance minister under the
government of Abdel Karim Qassem.
(PC, 1992 ed, p.963)(AP, 7/14/97)(USAT, 3/24/99,
p.18A) (SFC, 8/6/99, p.D4)
1958 Jul 20, King Hussein of
Jordan broke off diplomatic relations with UAR.
(MC, 7/20/02)
1958 Aug 1, Jordan’s King Hussein
dissolved the Arab Federation of Jordan and Iraq.
(PCh, 1992, p.963)
1960 Feb 7, Old handwriting was
found in at Qumran, Jordan, near the Dead Sea. [see 1947]
(MC, 2/7/02)
1963-1994 King Hussein of Jordan (1935-1999) held at
least 55 secret meetings with leading Israelis including at least seven
prime and foreign ministers.
(Econ, 11/24/07, p.88)
1965 Apr 1, King Hussein bin Talal
of Jordanian appointed his younger brother, Prince Hassan bin Talal, as
crown prince and heir to the Hashemite throne. This required a
change to the Jordan constitution to allow for fraternal succession.
(MC, 4/1/02)
1966 Nov 10, A land mine near
Hebron killed 3 Israeli policemen. Israel retaliated with a weekend
strike against West Bank villagers and ran into Jordanian troops in
Samu. Palestinians rioted and demanded the overthrow of Jordan’s Pres.
Hussein. The Arab legion was forced to fire and killed at least 4.
(WSJ, 6/5/02, p.D7)
1967 Jun 5, The Six Day War
erupted in the Middle East as Israel, convinced an Arab attack was
imminent, raided Egyptian military targets. Syria, Jordan and Iraq
entered the conflict. Jordan lost the West Bank, an area of 2,270 sq.
miles. War broke out as Israel reacted to the removal of UN
peace-keeping troops, Arab troop movements and the barring of Israeli
ships in the Gulf of Aqaba.
(AP, 6/5/97)(HN, 6/5/98)(NG, 5/93, p.58)(HNQ,
5/22/00)
1967 Jun 5-1967 Jun 10, Israel
fought the Six-Day War against Syria and captured the Golan Heights,
the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Allegations that
Israeli soldiers killed hundreds of Egyptian prisoners with the
knowledge of national leaders were made by Israeli historians in 1995.
Israel occupied Syrian territory. The Gaza Strip and the West Bank were
captured by Israel. Israel annexed the largely Arab East Jerusalem,
which included the Old City, and has since ringed it with Jewish
neighborhoods.
(WSJ, 8/17/95, p.A-1)(WSJ,11/24/95, p.A-1)(WSJ,
5/6/96, p.A-13)(SFC, 6/25/96, p.A10)(SFC, 1/22/98, p.B12)(SFC, 4/24/98,
p.A17)
1967 Jun 8, On the 4th day of the
Six-Day War Israel captured the Gaza Strip and Sinai Peninsula from
Egypt, as well as the West Bank and Eastern Jerusalem from Jordan.
Israel’s occupation of Gaza continued for the next 38 years.
(SSFC, 6/3/07, p.E6)(Econ, 1/10/09, p.9)
1967 Jun 10, Israel completed its
final offensive in the Golan Heights in the 6-Day Middle East War. The
next day Israel and Syria agreed to observe a United Nations-mediated
cease-fire. Israel took Gaza and the Sinai from Egypt, Old Jerusalem
and the West Bank from Jordan, and the Golan Heights from Syria. In
2002 Michael B. Oren authored "Six Days of War: June 1967 and the
making of the Modern Middle East." Israeli military historian Arieh
Yitzhaki later said that his research showed Israeli troops killed 300
Egyptian prisoners of war. Israel said soldiers on both sides committed
atrocities. In 2007 Tom Segev authored “1967: Israel, the War and the
Year that Transformed the Middle East.”
(AP, 6/10/97)(WSJ, 6/5/02, p.D7)(AP, 3/6/07)(Econ,
5/26/07, p.97)
1967 Jun 11, Israel and Syria
accepted a UN cease-fire. The UN brokered a cease-fire between Israel
and the defeated Egypt, Syria, and Jordan, ending the Six-Day War with
Israel occupying the Sinai, West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Golan
Heights. Israel annexed the largely Arab East Jerusalem, which included
the Old City, and has since ringed it with Jewish neighborhoods.
(HN, 6/11/98)(AP, 6/11/03)(SFC, 6/25/96, p.A10)
1968 Mar 21, Israeli forces
attacked a Palestinian base belonging to Fatah in the
village of Al-Karameh in Jordan. Israeli forces engage in a
battle with Palestinian fighters for the first time. On 24 March 1968,
the Security Council adopted resolution 248 (1968), condemning the
large scale and premeditated military actions by Israel against
Jordan. The Karameh mission failed. Muki Betser, Israeli commando, was
wounded. He later became commander of the Sayeret Matkal, Israel’s
elite counter-terrorist unit.
(SFC, 7/16/96,
p.E5)(www.un.int/palestine/chron60.shtml)
1970 Jun 11, Palestinian
guerrillas and King Hussein's army signed a truce in Jordan after week
of heavy clashes.
(AP, 6/11/03)
1970 Aug 7, Israel, Jordan and
Egypt agreed to a ceasefire under the terms of the US proposed Roger
Plan. The Roger Plan was originally proposed in a December 9, 1969,
speech at an Adult Education conference. The plan was formally
announced on 19 June 1970.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_Attrition)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogers_Plan)
1970 Sep 6, Palestinian guerrillas
of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine seized control of
three jetliners which were later blown up on the ground in Jordan after
the passengers and crews were evacuated. This triggered a civil war in
and the expulsion of Palestinians from Jordan.
(SFC, 12/13/96, p.B4)(AP, 9/6/97)
1970 Sep 15, The Jordanian army
attacked Palestinian positions. Within days PLO officials and commandos
were expelled from Jordan and forced to move to Lebanon.
(www.nmhschool.org/tthornton/mehistorydatabase/arabisraeliwars.php)(SFC,
2/8/99, p.A6)
1970 Sep 21, King Hussein sent a
plea to Israel for air support via the British embassy. Israel did not
respond. The Black September crises left 2,000 people dead in 13 days
of fighting.
(SFC, 1/3/01, p.A12)
1970 Sep 27, A cease-fire accord
was signed in Cairo between the Jordanian army and Palestinian
guerrillas by King Hussein and Yasser Arafat brokered by the Arab peace
committee headed by Bahi Ladgham of Tunisia.
(SFC, 4/16/98, p.B4)(http://tinyurl.com/6e3v9s)
1970 Sep, During "Black September"
army troops loyal to King Hussein put down a revolt by Palestinian
guerrillas, who demanded the ouster of the King. Cmdr. Habes al-Majali
(d.2001 at 87) crushed the rebellion led by followers of Yasser Arafat.
(SFC, 2/6/99, p.A13)(SFC, 4/24/01, p.B2)
1971 Jul 13-1971 Jul 19, Jordanian
troops proceeded to wipe out Palestinian guerrillas; some 1,500
prisoners were brought to Amman; Iraq and Syria soon broke off
relations with Jordan.
(WUD, 1994, p.
1688)(www.onwar.com/aced/data/bravo/blacksept1970.htm)
1971 Aug 12, Syrian Pres Assad
dropped diplomatic relations with Jordan.
(www.answers.com/topic/1971)
1971 The Palestine Liberation
Organization arrived in Lebanon following its ouster from Jordan after
losing the battles of "Black September.".
(SFC, 9/28/98, p.A10)
1973 Oct 6, The fourth
Arab-Israeli war in 25 years was fought. Israel was taken by surprise
when Egypt, Syria, Iraq and Jordan attacked on the Jewish holy day of
Yom Kippur, beginning the Yom Kippur War. The Yom Kippur War in which
Syria tried to regain the Golan Heights with a massive attack with
1,500 tanks. The assault was repulsed by air power.
(WSJ, 5/6/96, p.A-13)(TL-MB, p.21) (TMC, 1994,
p.1973)(AP, 10/6/97)(HN, 10/6/98)
1973 Dec 21, Israel, Egypt, Syria,
Jordan, US and USSR leaders met in Geneva. The Geneva Conference of
1973 was an attempt to negotiate a solution to the Arab-Israeli
conflict as called for in UN Security Council Resolution 338 which was
passed after the 1973 Arab-Israeli War.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geneva_Conference_(1973))
1974 Oct 30, An Arab summit in
Rabat, Jordon, decided that King Hussein would no longer speak for the
Palestinians and named the PLO under Yasir Arafat as the sole,
legitimate representative.
(SFC, 2/6/99,
p.A13)(www.palestinefacts.org/pf_1967to1991_rabat_1974.php)
1977 Ahmad Chalabi (b.1944),
Iraqi-born and US educated banker, founded Petra Bank in Jordan. The
bank collapsed in 1990 following a scandal that involved an Iraqi
account in exile. Chalabi fled Jordan, was convicted in absentia of
bank fraud. He denied any wrongdoing.
(WSJ, 11/7/05, p.A4)
1978 Jun 15, Lisa Halaby (b.1951),
American-Arab of New York, married Jordan’s King Hussein and became
Queen Noor.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_Noor_of_Jordan)(AP, 6/15/97)
1983 Apr 10, King Hussein of
Jordan, officially renounced pursuing any negotiations to implement the
Reagan Plan, and ceased negotiations with PLO.
(http://tinyurl.com/2q6ska)
1985 Feb 11, Jordan’s King Hussein
and PLO leader Arafat signed an accord.
(http://tinyurl.com/yy39mx)
1985 The Bani Hamida Women's
Weaving Project was founded with a $5,000 grant from the US-based Save
the Children group.
(WSJ, 11/26/99, p.A1)
1986 Feb 22, Jordan King Hussein
delivered a televised address in which he denounced PLO leader Yasser
Arafat and accused him of reneging of previous promises made to accept
resolutions 242 and 338.
(http://tinyurl.com/mlurr)
1986 Apr 17, At London's Heathrow
Airport, a bomb was discovered in a bag carried by an Irish woman about
to board an El Al jetliner; she had been tricked into carrying the bomb
by her Jordanian boyfriend.
(AP, 4/17/06)
1986 Jul 7, Jordan’s government
shut down all 25 offices of al-Fatah, the mainstream group in the
divided Palestine Liberation Organization.
(http://tinyurl.com/ycprwn)
1988 Jun 4, US Secretary of State
George Shultz flew to Jordan, where he met with King Hussein.
Afterward, Shultz said the Jordanian monarch was reluctant to engage in
peace talks with Israel unless Israel agreed to give up land on the
West Bank.
(AP, 6/4/98)
1988 Jul 30, Jordan's King Hussein
dissolved his country's lower house of Parliament, half of whose 60
members were from the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Hussein renounced
sovereignty over the West Bank to the PLO.
(AP, 7/30/98)(MC, 7/30/02)
1988 Jul 28, Jordan cancelled a
$1.3 billion development plan in West Bank.
(www.kinghussein.gov.jo/88_july31.html)
1988 Jul 30, Jordan's King Hussein
dissolved his country's lower house of Parliament, half of whose 60
members were from the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Hussein renounced
sovereignty over the West Bank to the PLO.
(AP, 7/30/98)(http://tinyurl.com/ov6pf)
1988 Jul 31, In a televised
speech, Jordan's King Hussein called for an independent Palestinian
state in the Israeli-occupied territories as he told the Palestinians
to take affairs into their own hands.
(HN, 7/31/98)
1988 In Jordan soon after the
beginning of the "intifada," King Hussein renounced rights to the West
Bank and retained a role as guardian of Jerusalem's holy places.
(SFC, 2/6/99, p.A13)
1989 Economic reforms were enacted.
(SFC,11/5/97, p.C2)
1989 Ahmad Chalabi (b.1944),
founding head of Petra Bank (1977), fled Jordan following a bank
scandal that involved an Iraqi account in exile. 13 people were
convicted including 9 Chalabis. Ahmed, who claimed the charges were
politically motivated, was sentenced in absentia to 22 years hard labor
for embezzling $300 million of state funds.
(Econ, 10/4/03, p.44)(WSJ, 11/7/05, p.A4)
1990 Aug 16, President Bush met
with Jordan’s King Hussein in Kennebunkport, Maine, where he urged the
monarch to close Iraq’s access to the sea through the port of Aqaba.
(AP, 8/16/00)
1990 Aug 30, UN Secretary-General
Javier Perez de Cuellar arrived in Jordan to try to mediate the Persian
Gulf crisis.
(AP, 8/30/00)
1990 Aug 31, UN Secretary-General
Javier Perez de Cuellar met twice with Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq
Aziz in Amman, Jordan, trying to negotiate a solution to the Persian
Gulf crisis.
(AP, 8/31/00)
1990s Journalist Annie Caulfield
made a number of visits to Jordan and later authored "Kingdom of the
Film Stars: Journey into Jordan."
(SSFC, 3/10/02, p.C6)
1990-1991 King Hussein maintained neutrality during
the Gulf War.
(SFC, 2/6/99, p.A13)
1991 Feb 6, Jordan’s King Hussein
tilted sharply toward Iraq in the Gulf War, describing the conflict as
an effort by outsiders to destroy Iraq and carve up the Arab world.
(AP, 2/6/01)
1991 Jul 21, Jordan became the
fourth Arab country to sign on to a US-backed Middle East peace
conference.
(AP, 7/21/01)
1991 Nov 1, The 3-day session of
the Middle East peace conference recessed in Madrid, Spain. The
conference led to Israeli deals with Jordan and the Palestinians and
established the principle of land for peace.
(AP,
11/1/01)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madrid_Conference_of_1991)(Econ,
5/24/08, p.68)
1992 Jan 13, Israeli, Palestinian
and Jordanian negotiators began talks in Washington on Palestinian
autonomy.
(AP, 1/13/98)
1992 Jan 14, Historic Mideast
peace talks continued in Washington, with Israel and Jordan holding
their first-ever formal negotiations, and the Israelis continuing
exchanges with Palestinian representatives.
(AP, 1/14/02)
1993 Sep 14, Israel and Jordan
signed a framework for negotiations, a day after the signing of a
PLO-Israeli peace accord.
(AP, 9/14/03)
1993 King Hussein let Islamic
parties run for Parliament but rewrote voting rules to limit the number
of seats that they could win.
(WSJ, 7/3/96, p.A1)
1994 Jul 25, Israeli Prime
Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Jordan's King Hussein signed a declaration
at the White House ending their countries' 46-year-old formal state of
war.
(AP, 7/25/97)
1994 Aug 8, Israel and Jordan
opened the first road link between the two once-
warring countries.
(AP, 8/8/99)
1994 Oct 17, Leaders of Israel and
Jordan initialed a draft peace treaty.
(AP, 10/17/99)
1994 Oct 26, Prime Minister
Yitzhak Rabin of Israel and Prime Minister Abdel Salam Majali of Jordan
signed a peace treaty in a ceremony attended by President Clinton.
(WSJ, 5/30/96, p.A4)(SFC, 6/15/96, p.A7)(SFC,
4/24/98, p.A17)(AP, 10/26/97)
1995 Feb 2, The leaders of Egypt,
Israel, Jordan and the Palestinians held an unprecedented summit in
Cairo to try to revive the Mideast peace process.
(AP, 2/2/00)(http://tinyurl.com/255pml)
1995 Dec, France just signed an
accord with Jordan providing for joint war games and technical
assistance as well as French training for the army and air force.
(WSJ, 12/18/95, p.A-10)
1995 The city of Amman was the
site of the 1995 MENA Economic Summit.
(WSJ, 10/27/95, p.A-1)
1996 Aug 19, King Hussein said 2
days of rioting over higher bread prices was quelled.
(WSJ, 8/19/96, p.A1)
1997 Mar 13, A Jordanian soldier
fired on Israeli junior high school girls on a field trip to the Jordan
River island known as Naharayim or Island of Peace. Seven girls were
killed and six injured.
(SFC, 3/14/97, p.A13)
1997 Mar 16, In Beit Shemesh,
Israel, Jordan's King Hussein knelt in mourning with the families of
seven Israeli schoolgirls gunned down by a Jordanian soldier.
(AP, Internet, 3/16/98)(SFC, 2/6/99, p.A10)
1997 Sep 25, In Jordan Khaled
Mashaal, the political leader of Hamas, was chemically attacked by two
men with forged Canadian passports in Amman. Hamas accused the men of
being Israeli Mossad agents. Jordan's King Hussein intervened, forcing
Israel to send the antidote that saved the Hamas leader's life and
release the group's jailed founder in exchange for the freedom of its
captured agents.
(SFC, 10/2/97, p.A10)(SFC, 10/3/97, p.B4)(SFC,
10/12/97, p.A17)(AP, 9/25/04)
1997 Sep 29, It was reported that
Jordan shut down 13 weekly newspapers for allegedly failing to maintain
assets and cash to $430,000.
(SFC, 9/29/97, p.A12)
1997 Oct 1, Israel freed Sheik
Ahmed Yassin (61), the founder and spiritual leader of Hamas. The ill
Yassin was taken to Jordan and hospitalized. As part of the deal an
antidote for the chemical used on last week’s Meshaal attack was
demanded by Jordan and Israel requested the release of the Meshaal
attackers.
(SFC, 10/2/97, p.A10)
1997 Nov 4, It was reported that
Jordan receives $225 million in annual aid from the US. Voter turnout
reached only 54.5% and tribal leaders loyal to King Hussein won a
majority of parliament, 47 of 80 lower house seats.
(SFC,11/4/97, p.A8)(SFC,11/5/97, p.C2)
1997 Dec 10, Jordan expelled 7
Iraqi diplomats after Iraq executed 4 Jordanians accused of smuggling
$850 worth of auto parts.
(SFC,12/11/97, p.A18)
1998 Jan 18, Assailants
assassinated 8 people in a hilltop villa that included a top Iraqi
diplomat, Hikmet Hajou, and Iraqi businessman Namir Ochi, who handled
food imports to Iraq for Saddam Hussein.
(SFC, 1/19/98, p.B2)
1998 Jan 26, The Supreme Court
suspended an amendment to the press law, passed last May, and cleared
the way for 12 newspapers to resume publishing.
(SFC, 1/27/98, p.A10)
1998 Feb 20, In Jordan a pro-Iraq
march turned violent and one person was killed.
(SFC, 2/21/98, p.A8)
1998 Mar 21, Sheik Assad Bayyoud
Tamini (86), a militant Muslim leader who later advocated peace with
Israel, died in Amman.
(SFC, 3/24/98, p.B2)
1998 Jul 13, King Hussein went to
the US to receive treatment for cancer.
(SFC, 11/28/98, p.A12)
1998 Aug 19, In Jordan the cabinet
resigned over polluted drinking water in Amman and King Hussein
appointed Fayez Tarawneh to form a new administration. Hussein was at
the Mayo Clinic in Rochester for lymphatic cancer.
(SFC, 8/20/98, p.A16)
1998 Oct 20, King Hussein of
Jordan joined Pres. Clinton to press for the Israeli-Palestinian
compromise.
(WSJ, 10/21/98, p.A1)
1998 Jordan began a divestiture
program. By 2004 it reaped over $1 billion from the sale of state-owned
companies and expected to raise another $600 million.
(WSJ, 11/10/04, p.A15)
1998 Jordan received ok from the
American CIA to sell 50,000 surplus AK-47 assault rifles to Peru. Many
of the rifles went to leftist guerrillas in Colombia and Vladimiro
Montesinos, Peru’s spy chief, was implicated.
(SFC, 11/6/00, p.A12)
1998 Samih Toukan founded Maktoob
in Amman, Jordan, a software firm dedicated to replacing English with
Arabic in e-mail systems. Maktoob.com was the world’s 1st Arab language
Web site. In 2000 the firm received a $2.5 million cash injection from
an Egyptian investment bank.
(SFC, 9/9/00, p.A14)(SSFC, 5/15/05, p.C1)
1999 Jan 19, In Jordan King
Hussein returned home following cancer treatment at the Mayo Clinic.
(SFC, 1/20/99, p.A10)
1999 Jan 22, King Hussein informed
his brother Hassan that he would be removed as successor and would be
appointed as a deputy. Hussein desired to move his own sons in line for
the Crown.
(SFC, 1/23/99, p.A10)
1999 Jan 25, In Jordon King
Hussein named his eldest son, Abdullah, as heir to the throne.
(SFC, 1/26/99, p.A12)
1999 Jan 26, In Jordan King
Hussein left for the Mayo clinic and his son Abdullah was sworn in to
run the country in his absence.
(SFC, 1/27/99, p.A7)
1999 Feb 5, In Jordan King Hussein
was pronounced clinically dead but his heart continued and his family
kept him on life support systems.
(SFC, 2/6/99, p.A1)
1999 Feb 7, In Jordan King Hussein
(63) officially died from Hodgkin's lymphoma. He was succeeded by his
eldest son, Abdullah. In 2008 “Lion of Jordan: The Life of King Hussein
in War and Peace,” by Avi Shlaim was published.
(SFC, 2/8/99, p.A1)(AP, 2/7/00)(Econ, 11/24/07, p.88)
1999 Mar 26, In Jordan security
authorities released more than 20 activists of an illegal Islamic party
who were sentenced to different jail terms over the past year. The
decision to release Al Tahrir Party activists followed a public amnesty
signed by His Majesty King Abdullah last week under which more than
2,500 prisoners and detainees are expected to be freed.
(www.jordanembassyus.org/033099003.htm)
1999 Jun 20, It was reported that
honor killings, the killing of girls and women by their relatives to
cleanse "soiled honor," regularly claim about 25 lives a year.
(SFEC, 6/20/99, p.A4)
1999 Aug 23, The National Popular
Campaign for Ending So-Called Honor Crimes began efforts to get rights
for women and harsher laws against men who kill female relatives for
family honor.
(SFC, 8/24/99, p.A12)
1999 Aug 30, Police in Amman
stormed offices linked to the radical Palestinian Hamas movement.
(SFC, 8/31/99, p.A13)
1999 Nov 21, In Jordan King
Abdullah pardoned 25 Hamas members and expelled 4 of them to Qatar.
Jordanian authorities expelled Khalid Mishal, Ibrahim Ghawsha, and two
other members to Qatar; released the remaining detainees; and announced
that the HAMAS offices would remain closed permanently. Charges against
the HAMAS officials included possession of weapons and explosives for
use in illegal acts.
(SFC, 11/22/99, p.A13)(Econ, 10/10/09,
p.50)(www.fas.org/irp/threat/terror_99/mideast.html)
1999 Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, whose
real name is Ahmed Fadheel Nazzal al-Khalayleh, was freed from a prison
in Jordan under a royal amnesty. He was doing jail time for militant
activities aimed at toppling the monarchy.
(AP, 11/21/05)
1999-2003 The US Volcker report of 2005 said that
Australia's wheat exporter, AWB Ltd., paid over $221 million during
this period to the Jordanian company, Alia, and that some of the money
was for the benefit of the Iraqi government.
(Econ, 1/28/06, p.41)
2000 Feb 22, In Jordan a
15-year-old boy strangled his sister (14) in a "crime of honor" because
he considered her to have shamed his family. An autopsy revealed that
the girl was a virgin.
(SFC, 2/25/00, p.D4)
2000 Mar 20, Pope John Paul II
arrived in Jordan for the beginning of his Holy land tour. He prayed at
Mt. Nebo where the bible says Moses first viewed the Promised Land.
(WSJ, 3/20/00, p.A1)(SFC, 3/21/00, p.A1)
2000 Mar 28, Jordan with US
intelligence help indicted 28 followers of Osama bin Laden for plotting
attacks against American tourists in Dec.
(SFC, 3/29/00, p.A14)
2000 Apr 23, King Abdullah II made
his first state visit to Israel and spent 4 hours in Eilat with Prime
Minister Barak.
(SFC, 4/24/00, p.A12)
2000 Jun 18, In Jordan King
Abdullah II accepted the resignation of Prime Minister Abdur-Ra-‘uf
Rawabdeh and appointed economist Ali Abu Ragheb (54) to form a cabinet.
(SFC, 6/19/00, p.A9)
2000 Jul 25, In Jordan a US-made
C-130 transport plane crashed and 13 soldiers were killed.
(SFC, 7/26/00, p.A14)
2000 Sep 18, A military tribunal
sentenced 6 Muslim militants to death for planned terrorist attacks
against US and Israeli targets in Jordan. 4 of the 6 were at large and
tried in absentia.
(SFC, 9/19/00, p.A12)
2000 Sep 27, Jordan planned a
flight to Iraq regardless of clearance from the UN sanctions committee.
(SFC, 9/27/00, p.A15)
2000 Oct 24, The US signed a free
trade deal with Jordan that included labor rights and environmental
standards.
(SFC, 10/25/00, p.A16)
2000 Nov 19, An Israeli envoy was
wounded in an apparent assassination attempt.
(SFC, 11/20/00, p.A8)
2000 Dec, Raed Hijazi (33), a
California-born alleged operative of Osama bin Laden, was extradited
from Syria to Jordan for planning bomb attacks on Christian, Jewish and
US targets as part of a foiled millennium plot. [see Feb 11, 2002]
(SFC, 10/3/01, p.A7)
2000 The Jordanian village of
Taybet Zaman near Petra was bought wholesale and transformed into a
contemporary hotel.
(SSFC, 7/24/05, p.F5)
2001 Mar 28, An Arab summit
convened in Amman. Delegates had already approved a draft resolution
for the UN to allow Baghdad to fund the Palestinian uprising.
(WSJ, 3/27/01, p.A17)
2001 Apr 10, Pres. Bush met with
Jordan’s King Abdullah and both agreed that ending violence in the
Middle East was the main goal for the region.
(WSJ, 4/11/01, p.A1)
2001 Apr, King Abdullah went on a
5-day national tour with Peter Greenberg of the Travel Channel. "His
majesty ran me ragged."
(SSFC, 9/23/01, Par p.15)
2001 Sep 24, The US rewarded
Jordan for its role in the anti-terrorist coalition with the passage of
a free trade treaty.
(SFC, 9/25/01, p.A1)
2001 Nov 4, It was reported that
some 400,000 Iraqis lived in Jordan, most of them refugees from the
Gulf War, and that Iraqi intelligence agents operated there freely.
(SSFC, 11/4/01, p.A3)
2001 Nov 9, King Abdullah II said
his country would consider sending troops to Afghanistan to help the
anti-terrorism coalition.
(SFC, 11/10/01, p.A3)
2001 Dec 25, Arab gunmen ambushed
Israeli troops along the Jordan border. One Israeli soldier was killed
along with 2 of the gunmen. Israel lifted a blockade around Jericho.
(SFC, 12/26/01, p.A3)(WSJ, 12/26/01, p.A1)
2001 At Washington’s request the
UN Security Council ordered that the assets of Yassin Qadi, a Saudi
businessman and multimillionaire, be frozen soon after the Sep 11
attacks in NYC. He was alleged to be a financier of Islamic terrorism
with close links to al-Qaida. The EU froze the assets of Yasin al-Qadi,
a Saudi businessman, and the Al-Barakaat International Foundation, a
Sweden-based charity suspected of funding al-Qaida terror groups. In
2008 the EU's highest court overturned the decision saying the order
failed to offer those on a terror blacklist any legal rights to a
judicial review under European law. Also frozen were the assets of Omar
Mohammed Othman, also known as Abu Qatada, an extremist Muslim preacher
from Jordan. In 2009 an EU court voided the freeze on Othman due to
lack of proper judicial review. Othman has lived in Britain since 1993,
has been arrested several times there under anti-terrorist legislation
and currently faced deportation to Jordan.
(WSJ, 8/29/07, p.A1)(AP, 9/3/08)(AP, 6/11/09)
2002 Feb 11, In Jordan Raed Hijazi
(33) was convicted and sentenced to be hung for plotting to blow up
tourist sites during millennium celebrations. [see Dec 2000]
(SFC, 2/12/02, p.A12)
2002 Feb 19, In Jordan a military
prosecutor froze the assets of some prominent businessmen and former
intelligence officials. Fraudulent loans were reported to be as much as
$85 million.
(WSJ, 2/20/02, p.A18)
2002 Feb 28, In Amman a bomb
killed 2 passersby and destroyed the car of a top anti-terrorism
official’s wife.
(WSJ, 3/1/02, p.A1)
2002 Mar 12, In Amman US VP Cheney
met with King Abdullah II, who expressed concern over any possible
strike against Iraq.
(SFC, 3/13/02, p.A11)
2002 Mar 21, King Abdullah II
visited Los Angeles on his way to the UN conference in Mexico.
(SSFC, 3/24/02, p.A15)
2002 Apr 4, The UN released $995
million in compensation to Kuwait for Iraq’s 1990 invasion. Most went
to 1,058 individuals. Saudi Arabia received $82.6 million and Jordan
got $44.9.
(SFC, 4/5/02, p.A12)
2002 Apr 9, Queen Rania led a
pro-Palestinian march in Amman.
(SFC, 4/10/02, p.A18)
2002 May 14, It was reported that
the Jordanian court had recently granted the country’s 1st divorce
under a new law.
(SFC, 5/15/02, p.A13)
2002 May 16, A military court
convicted Toujan Faisal, Jordan's 1st female lawmaker, of harming the
government's reputation in an open letter accusing the PM of financial
wrongdoing. She was sentenced to 1 ½ years in prison.
(SFC, 5/17/02, p.A20)
2002 Jul 1, Jordan reported that
11 people, including a Palestinian-Jordanian who fled the American
bombing on Osama bin Laden's stronghold in Afghanistan, have been
detained in connection with an alleged plot to attack American targets.
(AP, 7/1/02)
2002 Sep 1, Israel and Jordan
announced their largest joint project ever, a $800 million pipeline
intended to save the shrinking Dead Sea from environmental devastation.
(AP, 9/1/02)
2002 Oct 28, In Jordan an assassin
pumped eight shots into Laurence Foley (62), an employee of the US
Agency for International Development, outside his home in the first
known killing of a Western envoy in Amman. 2 suspects were arrested Dec
14. Abu Musab Zarqawi was suspected in the murder. In 2009 a military
court convicted Al-Qaida militant Mohammed Ahmed Youssef al-Jaghbeer in
a retrial for the murder of Foley and sentenced him to death.
(AP, 10/28/02)(WSJ, 12/16/02, p.A1)(WSJ, 2/10/04,
p.A8)(SFC, 7/14/09, p.A2)
2002 Nov 10, In Jordan police
clashed with a gang of alleged smugglers led by a Muslim extremist who
escaped from custody 10 days ago, and several people were killed.
(AP, 11/10/02)
2002 Nov 24, In Maan,
Jordan, one person was killed and several wounded in shootings between
officers and crowds who attacked police patrols. The city is home to
conservative Bedouin tribesmen who are heavily armed and oppose the
government's pro-Western stance and Jordan's 1994 peace treaty with
Israel.
(AP, 11/27/02)
2002 Dec 14, Jordanian police
announced the arrest of two alleged al-Qaida members in the October
killing of American diplomat Laurence Foley.
(AP, 12/14/03)
2003 Apr 1, In Jordan authorities
said they had foiled two recent Iraqi terror plots, including one by
Iraqi diplomats allegedly planning to contaminate water supplies to
Jordanian and US troops on Jordan's desert border with Iraq.
(AP, 4/1/03)
2003 Jun 17, Jordanians voted for
a new parliament, six years after the previous one was dissolved.
Allies of King Abdullah II won more than half of the seats in Jordan's
parliamentary elections. Jordan's parliament, unlike many Arab
legislatures, can block bills and dismiss a prime minister and his
Cabinet.
(AP, 6/17/03)(AP, 6/18/03)
2003 Jul 31, Two of ousted Iraqi
leader Saddam Hussein's daughters and their nine children were granted
refuge in Jordan.
(AP, 7/31/04)
2003 Jul, Samih Battikhi, former
Jordanian intelligence chief, was sentenced to 4 years in jail for
corruption.
(Econ, 7/19/03, p.36)
2003 Aug 7, In Iraq a car bomb
shattered a street outside the walled Jordanian Embassy, killed 19
people — including two children.
(SFC, 8/9/03, p.A1)(AP, 8/7/08)
2003 Oct 22, Jordan's king asked a
royal court minister to form a new government.
(AP, 10/22/03)
2003 Oct 25, In Amman, Jordan,
Faisal al-Fayez (51) was sworn in as the new PM along with 20 Cabinet
members.
(AP, 10/26/03)
2003 Nov 19, A Jordanian truck
driver fired on a crowd of tourists crossing into Israel, killing one
and wounding four, in an attack near the Red Sea resort of Eilat. The
gunman was killed by Israeli security personnel.
(AP, 11/19/03)
2004 Mar 9, Groundbreaking
ceremonies were set for a research center on the Israeli-Jordan border.
The Bridging the Rift foundation, launched in 1999, planned a $30
million environmental research center created with the assistance of
California's Stanford Univ.
(SFC, 2/28/04, p.A8)
2004 Mar 18, Jordan's King
Abdullah and PM Ariel Sharon held a secret meeting at the Israeli
leader's ranch to discuss Sharon's plan to withdraw unilaterally from
Palestinian areas.
(AP, 3/19/04)
2004 Apr 6, Jordan's military
court convicted 8 Muslim militants and sentenced them to death for the
2002 killing of U.S. aid official Laurence Foley in a terror conspiracy
linked to al-Qaida.
(AP, 4/6/05)
2004 Apr 17, Sgt. Maj. Ahmed
Mustafa Ibrahim Ali, a Jordanian policeman, shot into a group of U.N.
police officers in a prison compound in Kosovo. Two Americans and the
Jordanian assailant were killed. 10 U.S. officers and an Austrian were
wounded in the gunbattle.
(AP, 4/18/04)(SSFC, 4/18/04, p.A14)
2004 Apr 20, In Jordan police shot
and killed three suspected terrorists who were believed to have planned
to detonate a bomb that would have flattened a large part of the
capital Amman.
(AP, 4/20/04)
2004 May 3, California Gov. Arnold
Schwarzenegger paid a hastily arranged visit to King Abdullah II of
Jordan following criticism from Arab-Americans that his Mideast trip
excluded a meeting with Arabs.
(AP, 5/3/04)
2004 May 15, In Jordan a three-day
World Economic Forum began. Augusto Lopez-Claros, chief economist and
director of the Global Competitiveness Program in the World Economic
Forum, said "oil will remain a source of instability in the world, and
perhaps in the short-term it is the most significant factor."
(AP, 5/14/04)(AP, 5/15/04)
2004 Jun 5, The European
Investment Bank (EIB) granted a loan of 100 million euros (122 million
dollars) to Egypt's state-run natural gas holding company (EGAS) to
finance pipeline construction in Jordan.
(AFP, 6/6/04)
2004 Jun 16, A Jordanian military
court convicted 15 men, only one of whom was in custody, for a terror
conspiracy targeting U.S. and Israeli interests.
(AP, 6/16/04)
2004 Jul 26, A suicide car bomber
attacked near a U.S. base in the northern city of Mosul, killing three
Iraqis. Assassins gunned down a senior Interior Ministry official and
militants said they kidnapped two Jordanian truck drivers in spiraling
violence in Iraq.
(AP, 7/26/04)
2004 Jul 27, The chief executive
of a Jordanian firm working for the U.S. military in Iraq said he was
withdrawing from the country to secure the release of two employees who
have been kidnapped by militants.
(AP, 7/27/04)
2004 Oct 17, Jordan's military
prosecutor indicted Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, one of the most wanted
insurgents in Iraq, and 12 other alleged Muslim militants for an
alleged al-Qaida linked plot to attack the U.S. Embassy in Amman and
Jordanian government targets.
(AP, 10/17/04)
2004 Nov 3, Gunmen abducted a
Lebanese-American contractor who worked with the U.S. Army from his
Baghdad home. 4 Jordanian truck drivers were seized by assailants in a
separate kidnapping. Gunmen also killed an Oil Ministry official,
Hussein Ali al-Fattal, in a driveby shooting.
(AP, 11/3/04)
2004 Dec 27, Jordan's military
court on acquitted 13 Muslim militants, including three Saudi
fugitives, of conspiring to commit terror attacks against U.S. targets
in Jordan, but sentenced 11 of them to prison terms ranging from six to
15 years for possessing explosives.
(AP, 12/27/04)
2004 The book “Forbidden Love” by
Norma Khouri was published as a true story about an honor killing in
Jordan. In the US it was published as “Honor Lost.” Publishers in the
US and Australia later withdrew the book over allegations of its
truthfulness.
(SFC, 7/29/04, p.E2)
2004-2008 Jordan stripped some 2,700 Jordanians of
Palestinian origin of their citizenship during this period. Nearly half
the kingdom’s people were of Palestinian origin. The government
allegedly feared that if Palestinians were to become a majority, it
would disrupt the its delicate demographic balance.
(SFC, 2/2/10, p.A2)
2005 Jan 1, Jordan was forecast
for 5.1% annual GDP growth with a population at 5.8 million and GDP per
head at $2,010.
(Econ, 1/8/05, p.94)
2005 Jan 27, Jordan’s King
Abdullah II said he would introduce some limited democratic reforms in
his kingdom.
(AP, 1/27/05)
2005 Mar 18, King Abdullah II of
Jordan proposed a new peace strategy that drops traditional Arab
demands that Israel give up all land seized in the 1967 war and offers
the Jewish state normalized relations with Arab countries.
(AP, 3/19/05)
2005 Mar 19, Jordan, under
pressure from other Arab countries, accepted amendments to its
contentious proposal that was designed to revise Arab demands on Israel
in return for normal relations.
(AP, 3/19/05)
2005 Mar 20, In Jordan an appeals
court has overturned the conviction of a Jordanian found guilty of
financing Abu-Musab al-Zarqawi's insurgent group in Iraq. The Court of
Cassation said the Oct. 31 conviction of Bilal Mansur al-Hiyari by the
military State Security Court "fell short of adequate justifications
and causes."
(AP, 6/7/05)
2005 Mar 22, A Jordanian military
court convicted three Iraqis of smuggling rockets and hand grenades
into the kingdom in connection with a plot to attack U.S. and Israeli
targets.
(AP, 3/22/05)
2005 Apr 17, Israel's Cabinet
unanimously approved the release of nine Jordanian prisoners.
(AP, 4/17/05)
2005 May 18, In Petra, Jordan,
Elie Wiesel, the Dalai Lama and other Nobel Prize laureates debated
solutions to challenges facing the modern world.
(AP, 5/18/05)
2005 May 22, Jordan, Israel and
the Palestinian Authority said they had agreed terms for a feasibility
study on transferring water from the Red Sea to the Dead Sea, to save
the world's lowest sea from vanishing.
(AP, 5/22/05)
2005 Jun 5, In Jordan 14 men who
earlier admitted plotting terrorism and sparking riots that killed six
people in southern Jordan testified that they were tortured into
confessing. The men then pleaded innocent before a military court.
(AP, 6/5/05)
2005 Jun 24, In Jordan Saddam
Hussein's daughter said his family will publish next week a novel
written by the ousted Iraqi leader before the U.S.-led war.
(AP, 6/24/05)
2005 Jun 26, Jordan barred
publication of Saddam Hussein's fourth novel, titled "Get Out, Damned
One," due to political concerns. Saddam's eldest daughter, Raghad, said
her father finished the novel March 18, 2003, a day before the U.S.-led
war on Iraq began
(AP, 6/26/05)
2005 Jul 6, In Jordan over 170
leading Muslim scholars in Amman concluded an Int’l Islamic Conference.
They affirmed their authority and announced a mutual recognition
between Islam’s 8 main schools of legal interpretation: 4 Sunni, 2
Shia, the Ibadis of Oman and the small but prestigious Zahiri school.
(Econ, 7/30/05, p.41)(www.asmasociety.org/home/)
2005 Aug 4, A Jordanian prosecutor
said Jordan has arrested 17 militants linked to al-Qaida who were
allegedly plotting to attack U.S. troops and Jordanian intelligence
agents.
(AP, 8/4/05)
2005 Aug 14, A legal source said
Jordan will charge London-based radical Muslim cleric Abu Qatada (44)
with plotting to stage terrorist attacks when he is extradited from
Britain.
(AFP, 8/14/05)
2005 Aug 19, Attackers fired at
least three rockets from Jordan, with one narrowly missing a US Navy
ship docked at Aqaba and killing a Jordanian soldier. It was the most
serious militant attack on the Navy since the USS Cole was bombed in
2000.
(AP, 8/19/05)
2005 Aug 23, Iraq's al-Qaida wing
claimed responsibility for the Aug 19 rocket attack that barely missed
U.S. warships docked in the Jordanian port of Aqaba.
(AP, 8/23/05)
2005 Sep 11, In Jordan 12 Islamic
militants screamed praise for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks as a
Jordanian court jailed them for up to three years for plotting
terrorist strikes against the American and Israeli embassies.
(AP, 9/11/05)
2005 Sep 12, King Abdullah II of
Jordan paid Pope Benedict XVI a visit, saying he wanted to foster an
honest dialogue between the West and moderate Islam.
(AP, 9/12/05)
2005 Sep 16, Israeli PM Ariel
Sharon met with Jordan's King Abdullah II, their first talks in months
and a further sign of warming relations between the Jewish state and
the Arab world after Israel's Gaza withdrawal.
(AP, 9/16/05)
2005 Sep 21, The Kremlin issued a
letter from President Vladimir Putin to Jordanian King Abdullah II,
delivered personally by Moscow-backed Chechen President Alu Alkhanov
during his Middle Eastern tour. Putin said in the letter that the
situation in Chechnya was "steadily normalizing." Jordan has a large
Chechen Diaspora.
(AP, 9/21/05)
2005 Oct 14, Palestinian leader
Mahmoud Abbas arrived in Jordan for talks with King Abdullah II.
(AP, 10/14/05)
2005 Oct 22, In Haiti Muhammed
Khalaf (32), a UN peacekeeper from the Jordanian army. was shot
while on patrol near the volatile Cite Soleil slum of Port-au-Prince.
He died 2 days later.
(AP, 10/24/05)
2005 Nov 9, Suicide bombers In
Jordan carried out nearly simultaneous attacks on three U.S.-based
hotels in the capital of Amman in what appeared to be an al-Qaida
assault. 2 Americans were among at least 59 people killed and 115
wounded.
(AP, 11/10/05)(WSJ, 11/11/05, p.A1)
2005 Nov 10, After Jordanians took
to the streets to call for terror leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi to
"burn in hell," an al-Qaida manifesto said the Grand Hyatt, the
Radisson SAS and the Days Inn, were used by NATO as a rear base "from
which the convoys of the crusaders and the renegades head back and
forth to the land of Iraq where Muslims are killed and their blood is
shed."
(AP, 11/10/05)
2005 Nov 11, Al-Qaida in Iraq
claimed that four Iraqis, including a husband and wife, carried out the
Nov 9 suicide bombings against three Amman hotels, and police arrested
120 Jordanians and Iraqis in the hunt for anyone who might have aided
them.
(AP, 11/11/05)
2005 Nov 11, In Jordan Moustapha
Akkad, the Syrian-born producer of the "Halloween" horror films, died
from wounds sustained in the triple hotel bombings.
(AP, 11/11/05)
2005 Nov 12, Jordan's deputy
premier said 3 "non-Jordanian" suicide bombers belonging to al-Qaida in
Iraq carried out Amman's triple hotel attacks that killed at least 57
people.
(AP, 11/12/05)
2005 Nov 13, Jordanian security
forces arrested Sajida Ubarak Atrous al-Rishawi (35), an Iraqi woman,
whose husband is suspected of blowing up one of three Amman hotels.
Al-Rishawi confessed on television to trying to blow herself up with
her husband in one of the three Nov. 9 suicide attacks in Amman. This
followed a tip off by an al-Qaida claim that a husband-and-wife team
participated in the attacks that killed 57 other people. Her husband
was Ali Hussein Ali Shamari. The 2 other bombers were identified as
Rawad Jassem Mohammed Abed (23) and Safaa Mohammed Ali (23). The
bombers were from Fallujah.
(AP, 11/13/05)(SFC, 11/14/05, p.A3)
2005 Nov 15, Jordan introduced
strict security measures aimed at foreigners and said it was drafting
the country's first anti-terror specific legislation to prevent further
attacks like last week's the triple hotel bombings.
(AP, 11/15/05)
2005 Nov 15, A US Embassy official
said a 4th American has died from wounds sustained in last week's
triple hotel bombings in the Jordanian capital.
(AP, 11/16/05)
2005 Nov 24, Jordan's King
Abdullah II named Marouf al-Bakhit as the new prime minister hours
after the resignation of Adnan Badran. The king urged the new PM to
launch an all-out war against Islamic militancy in the wake of the
triple hotel bombings earlier this month that killed 63 people.
(AP, 11/24/05)(SFC, 11/25/05, p.A3)
2005 Nov 29, In Jordan more than
370 members of the clan of al-Qaida in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi
joined his family in publishing a full-page letter in Jordanian
newspapers disowning him.
(AP, 11/29/05)
2005 Dec 18, Jordan's military
court sentenced al-Qaida in Iraq chief Abu Musab al-Zarqawi to death
for a second time for a failed suicide bombing along the Iraqi border a
year ago.
(AP, 12/18/05)
2005 Dec 20, Jordan named a tough
anti-terrorism general to replace the country's top intelligence
operative and approved a new Cabinet, part of a political and security
overhaul since last month's deadly hotel bombings.
(AP, 12/20/05)
2005 Dec 24, Iraq’s governing
Shiite coalition called on Iraqis to accept results showing the
religious bloc leading in parliamentary elections and moved ahead with
efforts to form a “national unity” government. The electoral commission
said it would carry out a court decision to remove 90 people who were
members of Saddam's Hussein's outlawed Baath party from the tickets of
political parties and coalitions that participated in Dec. 15
elections. Militants released a video of a Jordanian hostage, giving
Jordan 3 days to cut ties with the Baghdad government and free a female
would-be suicide bomber involved in November attacks in Amman.
(AP, 12/24/05)(AP, 12/24/06)
2006 Jan 8, Jordan's parliament
approved a law that prevents Amman handing over US citizens accused of
war crimes to the international criminal court (ICC).
(Reuters, 1/8/06)
2006 Jan 17, In Haiti gunmen
killed two Jordanian UN peacekeepers and seriously wounded a third at a
checkpoint in Cite Soleil, a slum in Port-au-Prince.
(AP, 1/17/06)
2006 Jan 31, Saudi Arabia and
Jordan pressed the Islamic militant group Hamas to moderate its stand
on Israel and to entice the defeated Fatah party into a deal to share
power.
(AP, 1/31/06)
2006 Feb 4, Jihad Momani, a
Jordanian tabloid editor, was arrested after his newspaper published
controversial cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed, while an
investigation was launched into a second weekly newspaper that also
printed the cartoons. Momani, editor-in-chief of the weekly gossip
newspaper Shihane, was fired from his job the previous day.
(AFP, 2/4/06)
2006 Feb 15, A Jordanian military
court sentenced to death nine men, including al-Qaida in Iraq leader
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, for a plot to carry out a chemical attack against
the kingdom. Al-Zarqawi and three others received the death penalty in
absentia.
(AP, 2/15/06)
2006 Mar 1, Inmates of Juweideh
prison released Jordan's top prison official along with a half-dozen
police officers they had taken hostage, ending a 14-hour riot in 3
prisons that broke out over the fate of two convicted al-Qaida killers.
(AP, 3/2/06)
2006 Mar 8, A Jordanian military
court convicted 11 militants, including five fugitives, of running a
network that recruited and smuggled fighters into Iraq to attack US
forces.
(AP, 3/8/06)
2006 Mar 11, In Jordan 2 militants
were executed by hanging for the killing in Amman of a US diplomat.
(AP, 3/11/06)
2006 Mar 12, In Jordan 5 Islamic
militants were convicted of plotting terrorist attacks on Jordanian
intelligence agents, foreign tourists and upscale hotels and sentenced
to prison terms ranging from 10 years to life.
(AP, 3/12/06)
2006 Mar 14, Jordan indicted Abu
Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq, and 7 others for the
November bombings in Amman.
(SFC, 3/15/06, p.A3)
2006 Mar 31, Jordanian health
officials announced the kingdom's first human case of the bird flu in a
worker (31) believed to have contracted the deadly strain in his home
village in Egypt.
(AP, 3/31/06)
2006 Apr 3, In Jordan a bomb
exploded at a shop selling Iraqi scrap metal, killing two people and
wounding four.
(AP, 4/3/06)
2006 Apr 13, In Jordan security
forces stormed a prison to put down a riot after inmates claimed they
had taken two policemen hostage. One prisoner was killed in the clashes
while 15 police and 20 inmates were injured.
(AP, 4/13/06)
2006 Apr 18, Jordan accused Hamas
activists of smuggling missiles and other weapons into the kingdom and
said it was canceling a planned visit of the Palestinian foreign
minister, the second diplomatic snub for the Hamas-led government in a
week. Jordan later reported that it had detained more than 20 Hamas
activists for smuggling arms from Syria.
(AP, 4/18/06)(AP, 5/10/06)
2006 May 23, Ziad Khalaf Raja
al-Karbouly, an Iraqi government contractor, confessed on Jordanian
television to kidnapping and killing on the orders of al-Qaida in Iraq
before he was lured to Jordan and arrested.
(AP, 5/23/06)
2006 May 29, In Washington DC
Jordan's King Abdullah II met with President Bush and urged him to
pursue Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts.
(AP, 5/29/06)
2006 Jun 11, Jordan arrested four
lawmakers who visited the family of slain terrorist leader Abu Musab
al-Zarqawi. They were charged with "instigating sectarian strike" and
"fueling national discord" and remained jailed, serving 15-day
detention orders.
(AP, 6/18/06)
2006 Aug 17, Jordanian envoy Ahmed
al-Lozi has presented his credentials to the Iraqi government, becoming
the first fully accredited Arab ambassador in the country since the
fall of Saddam Hussein.
(AP, 8/18/06)
2006 Aug 25, In Jordan top leaders
of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah party gave their leader
the go-ahead to begin forming a unity government with the militant
Hamas in an effort to end internal feuding and international isolation.
(AP, 8/25/06)
2006 Aug 27, Jordan's parliament
endorsed the country's first anti-terrorism law despite objections by
some lawmakers that the bill curtails freedoms.
(AP, 8/27/06)
2006 Sep 4, Nabeel Ahmed Issa
al-Jaourah opened fire on tourists near a popular Roman ruins site in
Jordan's capital, killing Christopher Stokes, a British man, and
wounding five other foreigners and a local police officer. Police
overpowered and arrested the attacker at the scene. Al-Jaourah was
sentenced to death in December.
(AP, 9/4/06)(AP, 12/21/06)
2006 Sep 13, In Jordan a military
court convicted 10 suspected militants in two separate terrorism cases
that included conspiracies to kill Americans. Lawmakers approved a
measure that would only allow a state-appointed council to issue
religious edicts, a move aimed at denying Islamic hard-liners a forum
for disseminating extremist ideology. The measure will become law with
the expected approval of the upper house of Parliament and the king.
(AP, 9/13/06)(AP, 9/14/06)
2006 Sep 21, Jordan sentenced 7
people to death for triple hotel bombings that killed 60 people in
Amman last November. Sajida al-Rishawi (35), an Iraqi woman, was
sentenced to death. 6 others were sentenced to death in absentia.
(AP, 9/21/06)
2006 Sep 27, Jordan's military
court convicted five men of plotting attacks against US troops in Iraq,
including a cousin of slain al-Qaida in Iraq leader Abu Musab
al-Zarqawi.
(AP, 9/27/06)
2006 Oct 30, In Amman, Jordan, a
delegation of Iraq lawmakers met with a newly formed group of Iraqi
political activists and agreed to hold a national reconciliation
conference next month.
(AP, 10/3o/06)
2006 Nov 11, In Haiti 2 UN
peacekeepers from Jordan were shot to death in Port-au-Prince after
coming under attack by gunmen. Jordan counted about 1,500 troops in the
force of some 8,800 peacekeepers. Nine peacekeepers have been killed
since the force arrived in June 2004.
(AP, 11/11/06)
2006 Nov 28, Jordan's King
Abdullah II called for renewed efforts to settle the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict in a speech, but he warned that his
country would not accept a deal that causes an influx of Palestinians.
(AP, 11/28/06)
2006 Nov 29, Iraqi lawmakers and
Cabinet ministers loyal to anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr said
they have carried out their threat to suspend participation in
Parliament and the government to protest PM Nouri al-Maliki's summit
with US Pres. George W. Bush in Jordan. 13 insurgents and 15 citizens
were killed in Iraq, including two females who were caught up in a
coalition raid north of the capital. A US army soldier died from wounds
suffered in Anbar province.
(AP, 11/29/06)
2006 Nov 30, President Bush in
Jordan said the US will speed a turnover of security responsibility to
Iraqi forces but assured PM Nouri al-Maliki that Washington is not
looking for a "graceful exit" from a war well into its fourth violent
year. Today's meetings were supposed to be Bush's second set of
strategy sessions in Amman. But the first meeting between Bush and
al-Maliki, a day earlier along with Jordan's king, was scrubbed. PM
Nouri al-Maliki called on lawmakers and Cabinet ministers loyal to an
anti-American cleric to end their boycott of the government in response
to his summit with President Bush. An American soldier was killed
during combat in Baghdad.
(AP, 11/30/06)(AP, 12/1/06)
2006 Dec 7, A Jordanian military
court convicted three Syrians and one Iraqi and sentenced them to death
for firing rockets at two US warships in August 2005.
(AP, 12/7/06)
2006 Dec 13, Jordanian and Iraqi
interior ministers and their security officials met to coordinate plans
and share intelligence on terrorist groups such as al-Qaida, which has
staged devastating attacks in both states.
(AP, 12/13/06)
2006 Dec 18, Jordanian authorities
closed down an isolated desert prison where UN investigators and rights
groups alleged inmates were routinely beaten and tortured.
(AP, 12/18/06)
2006 Dec 19, Israeli Prime
Minister Ehud Olmert made a surprise visit to Jordan for talks with
King Abdullah II on ways to revive Mideast peacemaking. A wanted
Palestinian militant was killed and two others were arrested by Israeli
forces in the West Bank city of Nablus. Gunbattles raged in the streets
of Gaza City between the Hamas and Fatah movements, killing at least
four people in factional fighting that shredded a shaky truce. At least
18 people were wounded, including five children caught in the crossfire.
(AP, 12/19/06)
2006 Dec 26, Ayham al-Samaraie, a
former minister of electricity with dual US and Iraqi citizenship,
arrived in Jordan on a US plane. Al-Samaraie, who escaped from a
Baghdad prison this month, was serving time for corruption when he
escaped mid-December.
(AP, 12/26/06)
2007 Jan 9, Jordanian police
killed one suspected al-Qaida member and detained a second in a
crackdown that foiled a terrorist plot against Jordan.
(AP, 1/9/07)
2007 Jan 19, Jordan's King
Abdullah II told an Israeli newspaper that his country wants its own
nuclear program for peaceful purposes.
(AP, 1/19/07)
2007 Jan 23, A Jordanian man
fatally shot his 17-year-old daughter whom he suspected of having sex
despite a medical exam that proved her chastity. The man surrendered to
police hours after the killing, saying he had done it for family honor.
On average, about 20 women in the country are killed by their relatives
in such cases each year.
(AP, 1/25/07)
2007 Feb 13, Jordan's King
Abdullah II and Russian President Vladimir Putin called for a stronger
international push for lasting Mideast peace and urged for a diplomatic
solution to Iran's nuclear standoff.
(AP, 2/13/07)
2007 Mar 5, John Holmes, the new
UN humanitarian chief, said the UN plans to open an office in Jordan to
deal with the increasingly serious humanitarian problems posed by 1.8
million Iraqis who have fled to neighboring countries and a similar
number who have fled their homes and are still inside Iraq.
(AP, 3/6/07)
2007 Mar 15, Jordan's military
court sentenced to death four Iraqi al-Qaida militants charged with
terror attacks on Jordanians in Iraq. Of the four, only one is in
custody while the other three remain at large and were tried in
absentia.
(AP, 3/15/07)
2007 Apr 2, Jordan's military
court convicted six alleged militants of planning suicide attacks
against Jordan's main international airport and against hotels hosting
Israeli and American tourists.
(AP, 4/2/07)
2007 Apr 19, Israeli Knesset
speaker Dalia Yitzik arrived in Jordan, the second Israeli official to
visit the Arab kingdom this week for talks on ways to revive
Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking.
(AP, 4/19/07)
2007 May 18, Jordan's King
Abdullah II made a new attempt to rally Mideast peace efforts as he
hosted politicians and business leaders at the World Economic Forum.
Politicians attending the forum warned of a bleak future for the
Mideast if its explosive tensions are not resolved.
(AP, 5/18/07)
2007 Jun 9, Jordanian police
exchanged gunfire with a small group of armed men suspected of stealing
electricity and water in a town near the Israeli border. One of the
gunmen was killed and several were arrested.
(AP, 6/9/07)
2007 Jun 26, In Jordan a
70-year-old woman who killed her daughter with an ax for giving birth
to an illegitimate child and a man who shot a relative dead were each
sentenced to prison in separate "honor crime" prosecutions.
(AP, 6/26/07)
2007 Jun, The World Monuments Fund
added the Jordan River Valley to its list of 100 most endangered sites.
Israel, Jordan and Syria diverted over 90% of the Jordan River water
annually for drinking and irrigation, reducing flow to the Dead Sea.
(SSFC, 8/12/07, p.A15)
2007 Jul 5, Israeli troops crossed
into the Gaza Strip and engaged Hamas militants in a fierce gunbattle
that drew in Israeli aircraft, tanks and bulldozers. 11 militants were
killed. A cameraman for Hamas TV, who lay wounded on the ground, came
under more fire during a clash with Israeli troops. The shooting was
captured on film and broadcast on al-Jazeera satellite television. Imad
Ghanem had to have both legs amputated as a result of his injuries.
Israel repatriated 4 Jordanian infiltrators who were serving life
sentences in Israeli prisons for killing Israeli soldiers.
(AP, 7/5/07)(AP, 7/6/07)(AP, 7/7/07)
2007 Jul 7, A global poll picked
the Great Wall of China, Rome's Colosseum, India's Taj Mahal, Peru’s
Macchu Picchu, Jordan’s Petra, Brazil's Statue of Christ Redeemer and
Mexico's Chichen Itza pyramid as the new seven wonders of the world.
The campaign to name the new wonders was launched in 1999 by the Swiss
adventurer Bernard Weber.
(AP, 7/8/07)
2007 Jul 11, Jordan's military
court convicted and sentenced two militants to prison with hard labor
for plotting to attack Americans living in the kingdom.
(AP, 7/11/07)
2007 Jul 25, The foreign ministers
of Egypt and Jordan, delegated by the 22-member Arab League, began a
historic visit to Israel to formally present an Arab peace plan, saying
they were extending "a hand of peace" on behalf of the region.
(AP, 7/25/07)(Econ, 7/28/07, p.48)
2007 Jul 26, Jordan pleaded for
international help to deal with hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who
have fled here to avoid the violence at home, saying they cost the
kingdom $1 billion a year in basic services.
(AP, 7/26/07)
2007 Jul 31, Pro-government and
independent candidates swept local elections in Jordan, including the
first-ever vote for city mayors. The Islamist main opposition group
withdrew from Jordan's first mayoral elections and accused the
government of fraud.
(AP, 7/31/07)(AP, 8/2/07)
2007 Aug 24, In Jordan former
Iraqi President Abdel-Rahman Aref (91), overthrown more than 35 years
ago in a coup that brought Saddam Hussein's Baath party to power, died
in Amman.
(AP, 8/24/07)
2007 Sep 3, President Nicolas
Sarkozy said France and Jordan want to work "hand-in-hand" to help
resolve crises in the Middle East, following talks with King Abdullah
II.
(AP, 9/3/07)
2007 Sep 16, In Jordan the US
Embassy said the US has signed an accord with Jordan on the sidelines
of a nuclear energy summit in Vienna, Austria, aimed at supporting the
peaceful development of the kingdom's nascent nuclear program.
(AP, 9/16/07)
2007 Nov 5, Jordan's military
court convicted Muammar Ahmed Yousef al-Jaghbeer, an al-Qaida militant
of involvement in the deadly suicide car bombing of the Jordanian
Embassy in Iraq in 2003 and sentenced him to death.
(AP, 11/5/07)
2007 Nov 20, Jordan held
elections. Supporters of King Abdullah II, a close US ally, handily
defeated the country's Islamist opposition in parliamentary elections,
dropping their number of parliament seats by nearly two-thirds.
(AP, 11/21/07)
2008 Jan 13, King Abdullah II of
Jordan arrived on a three-day official visit to Morocco. Talks between
King Abdullah II and Morocco's King Mohammed VI focused on revitalizing
trade between Amman and Rabat.
(AFP, 1/13/08)
2008 Jan 26, In northern Jordan a
tour bus collided with a water tanker, killing at least 21 people with
33 Injured.
(AP, 1/27/08)
2008 Jan 26, George Habash (81),
former PLO leader, died in Jordan. His radical PLO faction gained
notoriety after the simultaneous hijackings of four Western airliners
in 1970 and the seizure of an Air France flight to Entebbe, Uganda.
(AP, 1/26/08)
2008 Mar 28, Jordan, Iraq and
Yemen announced at the last minute that their top leaders will not
attend this weekend's Arab summit in Damascus.
(AP, 3/28/08)
2008 May 17, Somali pirates
hijacked a Jordanian-flagged ship, called the Victoria, in the latest
in a string of attacks off the lawless coast of Somalia. Islamic
insurgents in Somalia seized a major agricultural center overnight in
Jilib. 2 militia fighters were killed. The UAE-owned ship was released
on May 23.
(AP, 5/17/08)(AP, 5/18/08)(AP, 5/23/08)
2008 May 30, Jordan and France
signed an agreement to help the Arab kingdom develop its nuclear energy
program.
(AP, 5/30/08)
2008 Jul 17, In Amman, Jordan, a
gunman shot and wounded six people near a Roman amphitheater. He shot
himself in the head as he was chased by police, and was in critical
condition. A police official identified the assailant as Thaer
al-Weheidi (19), a resident of Baqaa camp, the largest of 11
Palestinian refugee settlements in Jordan. Al-Weheidi died on July 22.
(AP, 7/17/08)(AP, 7/22/08)
2008 Aug 4, A Jordanian military
court sentenced 12 men to up to five years in jail for planning to join
Iraq's insurgency and carry out attacks against US and Iraqi forces.
The five men who received the longest jail terms were at large and
tried in absentia.
(AP, 8/4/08)
2008 Oct 8, Human Rights Watch, a
New York-based human rights group, accused Jordan's security services
of carrying out widespread torture in the country's jails. The torture
allegations came from 66 out of 110 prisoners interviewed randomly in
seven of Jordan's main prisons in 2007 and 2008.
(AP, 10/8/08)
2008 Oct 9, Two American
journalists, Holli Chmela (27) and Taylor Luck (23), who went missing
during a vacation in Lebanon eight days ago were released in Syria and
returned to Jordan. The next day they said they had been "kidnapped" by
their taxi driver and taken into Syria, where they were held in custody
for a week before being released.
(AP, 10/9/08)(AP, 10/10/08)
2008 Oct 21, Jordanian police
arrested a local writer for incorporating verses of the Quran, the
Muslim holy book, into his love poetry. Islam Samhan, published his
collection of poems, "Grace like a Shadow," without the approval of the
Jordanian government, and authorities said it insults the holy book.
(AP, 10/21/08)
2008 Nov 16, Israeli leaders made
a secret journey to neighboring Jordan, listening to pleas from King
Abdullah II to avert a large-scale military operation in the Gaza
Strip. An Israeli airstrike killed 4 Palestinian militants as they were
firing mortars at Israel from the Gaza Strip, just hours after another
group of militants struck Israel in a separate rocket attack.
(AP, 11/16/08)(AP, 11/20/08)
2008 Marwan Muasher (52), former
Jordanian ambassador to Israel (1995-1996). authored “The Arab Center:
The Promise of Moderation.”
(Econ, 8/23/08, p.72)
2009 Apr 12, Jordanian authorities
said a man has confessed to stabbing to death his pregnant sister (28)
and mutilating her body to protect the family honor. The incident, the
ninth such case this year and the second this month, took place in the
village of Basira, in the conservative Bedouin heartland of southern
Jordan.
(AP, 4/12/09)
2009 Apr 24, Jordan's king
recorded an interview urging President Barack Obama to take a more
forceful role in the peace process between Israelis and Palestinians,
warning of a new Mideast war if there is no significant progress in the
next 18 months.
(AP, 4/26/09)
2009 May 8, Pope Benedict XVI
arrived in Jordan and expressed deep respect for Islam. He said he
hopes the Catholic Church can play a role in Mideast peace as he began
his first trip to the region, where he hopes to improve frayed ties
with Muslims.
(AP, 5/8/09)
2009 May 10, In Jordan Pope
Benedict XVI urged Middle East Christians to persevere in their faith
despite hardships threatening their ancient communities, addressing a
crowd of 20,000 who filled a sports stadium where he celebrated the
first open-air Mass of his pilgrimage.
(AP, 5/10/09)
2009 May 14, Jordan's king pressed
Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu to immediately commit to the
establishment of a Palestinian state, as he pursues a sweeping
resolution of the Muslim world's conflicts with Israel.
(AP, 5/14/09)
2009 May 17, Jordan and Royal
Dutch Shell PLC signed a concessionary agreement to explore for oil in
the country's vast oil shale deposits.
(AP, 5/17/09)
2009 May 21, Fathi al-Jahmi,
Libyan dissident and human rights activist repeatedly imprisoned in
Libya for defying the country's leader Moammar Gadhafi, died after
being released earlier this month to Jordan. He never regained
consciousness after having slipped into a coma following a stroke on
May 4 in a Libyan jail. He was sentenced to death in 2006 for failing
to recognize Gadhafi's authority, and remained behind bars until his
release to Jordan.
(AP, 5/22/09)
2009 May 26, A leading rights
group urged Jordan to stop the detentions of thousands without trial
each year and annul a 55-year-old law that allows people to be held
without due process.
(AP, 5/26/09)
2009 Oct 9, In Haiti 11 UN
peacekeepers were killed when a CASA C-212 surveillance flight slammed
into a mountain. The victims were Uruguayan and Jordanian troops
serving with the 9,000-strong UN peacekeeping force that has been in
Haiti since 2004.
(AP, 10/10/09)
2009 Oct 25, Energy giant BP
signed a deal with Jordan to explore for natural gas reserves in the
Risheh field near the border with Iraq in an investment that could
reach billions of dollars.
(AFP, 10/25/09)
2009 Nov 14, A Jordanian citizen
died after being beaten by police, the second time this week, casting a
rare spotlight on the nation's US-trained security forces, that may
also have worked as proxy jailers for the CIA. Fakhri Kreishan (47)
died two days after slipping into a coma caused by a severe beating to
the head due to a clash between police and residents in the southern
city of Maan. Sadem al-Saud (20) died Nov 7, three weeks after he was
put into a coma by a beating administered during an interrogation in an
Amman police station.
(AP, 11/15/09)
2009 Dec 30, In Afghanistan
bombings killed 14 people, including 8 Americans and an Afghan in a
suicide attack at a CIA base at the edge of Khost city, and 4 Canadian
soldiers and a journalist by a roadside bomb in the southern Kandahar
province. Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi (32), a physician from
Jordan, was an Al-Qaida triple agent. 7 CIA employees and a Jordanian
intelligence officer were among the victims. An airstrike by
international forces in Helmand province killed 7 civilians, 2 Taliban
and wounded another civilian. The attack took place after an
international patrol came under fire from insurgents and called for air
support. Suspected Taliban militants kidnapped 2 French journalists
working for France's public television and 3 Afghan companions in
Kapisa province.
(AP, 12/31/09)(AFP, 12/31/09)(AP, 1/1/10)(AP, 1/5/10)
2010 Jan 9, Humam Khalil Abu Mulal
al-Balawi, the Jordanian doctor who killed 7 CIA employees in a suicide
attack in Afghanistan, said in video clips broadcast posthumously today
that all jihadists must attack US targets to avenge the death of
Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud. Speaking in Arabic in the
video shown on al-Jazeera, the Arabic network, and Aaj, a Pakistani
channel, al-Balawi noted that the Pakistani Taliban had given shelter
to "emigrants" — Muslim fighters from abroad.
(AP, 1/9/10)
2010 Jan 14, In Jordan there was
an attack on a convoy of Israeli diplomats heading home for the
weekend. It was the first roadside bombing in Jordan and exposed a
security gap for Israeli diplomats. On Jan 31 a Jordanian security
official said authorities have arrested dozens of Muslim militants in
connection with the failed bomb attack.
(AP, 1/31/10)
2010 Jan 31, A Jordanian security
official said more than 40 alleged Islamist extremists have been
arrested in Jordan since a Jordanian blew himself up in Afghanistan in
December, killing seven CIA agents.
(AFP, 1/31/10)
2010 Apr 30, Jordanian doctor
Humam Khalili Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, who killed seven CIA employees in a
suicide attack in Afghanistan late last year, called on Muslims to wage
jihad and become martyrs in a posthumous message posted on extremist
websites.
(AP, 4/30/10)
2010 May 3, A team of Israeli,
Jordanian and Palestinian environmental scientists said large stretches
of the biblical Jordan River could dry up by 2011. In 1847, a US Naval
officer visiting the area reported on the "deafening roar of the
tumultuous waters."
(AP, 5/4/10)
2010 May 11, In Jordan John Zinn
(33), president and chief executive officer of South Carolina-based
Defense Venture Group, died. A top security official said an
investigation showed that Zinn was "highly intoxicated." He was in
Amman for a military exhibition. Security officials said he fell to his
death from the second floor of a deserted building in Amman.
Preliminary reports show no indication of foul play or attempted
suicide.
(AP, 5/13/10)
2010 Aug 2, A string of
rockets was fired toward the Israeli resort city Eilat, and one hit in
neighboring Jordan, killing one person and wounding four. On Aug 3
Jordan said it has evidence that the rocket attack originated from
neighboring Egypt's Sinai Peninsula.
(AP, 8/2/10)(AP, 8/3/10)
2010 Nov 9, Jordanians lined up to
cast ballots for a new parliament in a vote that was dominated by anger
at Israel over stalled peace talks and widespread frustration over an
economic crisis. Loyalists of King Abdullah II won a majority of seats
in the next parliament. The Islamist opposition boycotted the elections
in protest of electoral laws they said were unfair. Votes in the
capital carried only a quarter of the weight as ones cast in the
hinterlands.
(AP, 11/9/10)(AP, 11/10/10)(Econ, 11/6/10, p.60)
2010 Nov 14, Sri Lanka officials
said they are probing allegations that one of its nationals, a
housemaid identified as D.M. Chandima employed in Jordan, was forced to
swallow nails, in the third case involving alleged torture in three
months.
(AFP, 11/14/10)
2010 Nov 19, In Iraq 4 Jordanians
of Palestinian origin from Zarqa were killed while fighting American
troops. The men were all in their 20s and 30s and with the exception of
one, had served jail terms in Jordan for plotting anti-American terror
attacks.
(AP, 12/22/10)
2010 Dec 7, Jordanian computer
engineer Mohammed Rateb Qteishat (33) was killed by Iraqi forces in
Mosul. He was an al-Qaida operative fighting American forces in Iraq.
In 2006, he was sentenced to death in absentia in his native Jordan for
plotting attacks on Americans in Jordan and attempting to blow up
hotels in Amman.
(AP, 12/22/10)
2010 Dec 9, Jordan appointed a
woman, Ihsan Barakat (46), as chief district attorney of the country's
capital, marking the first time a woman has held a top prosecutor's
post in the pro-American Arab kingdom.
(AP, 12/9/10)
2010 Dec 10, In Jordan fans of
rival soccer teams clashed after a match, injuring 250 people in
violence that pointed to the deep divisions between the nation's native
Bedouin clans and its Palestinians.
(AP, 12/11/10)
2010 Dec 15, Jordanian engineer
Maath Mohammed Kamal Alia (45) was arrested in Yemen on suspicion of
throwing a bomb at a US Embassy vehicle.
(AP, 12/22/10)
2010 Jordan’s population numbered
about 6 million. Half of the people were of Palestinian origin.
(SFC, 2/2/10, p.A2)
2011 Jan 18, Jordan’s powerful
Islamist opposition said Jordanians should be able to elect their prime
minister and other government officials rather than having them
appointed in a rare challenge to Jordan's political system.
(AP, 1/18/11)
2011 Jan 21, Jordan's opposition
vowed continual protests over price increases and inflation until the
resignation of PM Samir Rifai and his government. Thousands of
Jordanians calling for their government to step down marched in several
cities in an outpouring of anger over economic hardship and a lack of
democratic reforms in the constitutional monarchy.
(AP, 1/21/11)
2011 Jan 28, In Jordan the Muslim
Brotherhood called for fresh demonstrations to press its demand for
political and economic reforms. Thousands of Jordanians demonstrated
peacefully in Amman and other cities after weekly prayers to press for
political and economic reform, and demanding that the government resign.
(AP, 1/28/11)(AFP, 1/28/11)
2011 Jan 31, Jordan's King
Abdullah II fired his government in the face of smaller street
protests, named an ex-prime minister to form a new Cabinet and ordered
him to launch political reforms. King Abdullah II named Marouf Bakhit
(64), a career soldier and former prime minister, after sacking the
government of Samir Rifai (43).
(AP, 2/1/11)(AFP, 2/2/11)(Econ, 2/5/11, p.32)
2011 Feb 2, Jordan's new premier,
Maruf Bakhit, began consultations on forming a government charged with
passing reforms and meeting the demands of popular protests, despite
objections from the Islamist opposition.
(AFP, 2/3/11)
2011 Feb 3, Jordan's King Abdullah
II widened his political outreach and met with the Muslim Brotherhood
for the first time in nearly a decade.
(SFC, 2/4/11, p.A2)
2011 Feb 5, Unknown saboteurs
attacked an Egyptian pipeline supplying gas to Jordan, forcing
authorities to switch off gas supply from a twin pipeline to Israel.
Egypt supplies about 40 percent of Israel's natural gas. The attack
came after Israel expressed concern that its natural gas supplies from
Egypt could be threatened if a new regime takes power in Cairo.
(AFP, 2/5/11)
2011 Feb 6, Jordan's Islamist
opposition said it has rejected an offer to join a new government led
by PM Marruf Bakhit and tasked with pushing through reforms.
(AFP, 2/6/11)
2011 Feb 9, Jordan’s King Abdullah
II swore in a new 27-member Cabinet following protests demanding jobs,
reduced prices for food and fuel and changes to an election law giving
government loyalists more seats in the national Assembly.
(SFC, 2/10/11, p.A2)
2011 Feb 11, Hundreds of
Jordanians took to the streets in rival protests, one calling for the
ouster of their new prime minister and the other to support toppling
Egypt's embattled leader.
(AP, 2/11/11)
2011 Feb 15, Jordan's interior
minister said protest marches will no longer need government
permission, bowing to growing pressure to allow wider freedoms.
Protesters would still have to inform authorities of any gathering two
days in advance to "ensure public safety" and that they would have to
observe public order.
(AP, 2/15/11)
2011 Feb 18, In Jordan clashes
broke out in Amman between government supporters and opponents at a
protest calling for more freedom and lower food prices, injuring eight.
(AP, 2/18/11)
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Subject = Jordan
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