Amman, Jordan – Inmates released Jordan’s top prison official along with a half-dozen police officers they had taken hostage, ending a riot that broke out over the fate of two convicted al-Qaeda killers, a security official said Wednesday.
As the Jordanian riot ended, a four-day revolt in an Afghan prison that authorities said was led by al-Qaeda and Taliban loyalists also was winding down, with six inmates reported killed.
At the same time, Yemeni security officials announced they had thwarted escape attempts by al-Qaeda suspects in two different prisons over the past two days.
In Jordan, Maj. Gen. Owad al-Khalidi, the assistant director general of the public-security directorate, announced the end of the 14-hour confrontation on Jordanian television.
The causes of the riot and ensuing hostage crisis at the Juweideh prison on the outskirts of Amman remained unclear, but they focused on at least two convicted al-Qaeda terrorists imprisoned in another facility, one of whom killed an American diplomat.
Maj. Bashir Da’aja, spokesman for the Public Security Department, said the riots broke out when prisoners demanded the two inmates be transferred from the Swaqa prison, 63 miles south of Amman, to Juweideh.
An Islamic activist in Jordan said inmates began rioting after they heard reports that the two convicted al-Qaeda members were being taken away for execution, but Da’aja said “no execution order was ever issued.”
The activist, who asked not to be named for fear of reprisals by security forces, said his information came from families of inmates who were in the prison when the rioting broke out. The activist himself once was in the same prison.
