Al-Rai: Jordan: American soldiers will not attack Iraq

A Jordanian official said yesterday that the American soldiers currently on the Jordanian territories will not take part in a possible attack against Iraq, denouncing the call by the Jordanian opposition to boycott them.

The Jordanian daily al-Rai quoted the said official as saying that the "presence of these soldiers is for the purpose of training the Jordanian armed forces to run anti-missiles Patriot missiles the Jordanian forces has recently received, rather the taking part in the attack against Iraq or any other Arab country."

The official explained that "the mission of those soldiers is only confined to train the armed forces to operate the Patriot batteries system and there will be no direct or nondirect contacts with citizens." On February 27th, the Jordanian prime minister Ali Abul Ragheb said that "several hundred" US soldiers are being deployed in Jordan to train the Jordanian forces on the use of three patriot batteries deployed in the kingdom by the beginning of February.

On Monday, the secretary general of the Islamic Labor Front party Hamzeh Mansour called on the Jordanian citizens not to give any sort of service to the American soldiers deployed in the country.