THIS is What Our Arab Allies Do For Us

Jordan executes killers of U.S. envoy
Two with ties to al Qaeda hanged for 2002 assassination

Saturday, March 11, 2006; Posted: 7:29 a.m. EST (12:29 GMT)

(CNN) -- The Jordanian government Saturday executed two al Qaeda-linked terrorists convicted in the 2002 assassination of a U.S. diplomat, according to Jordan's Petra news agency.

Salem Sa'ed Salem bin Suweid, a Libyan national, and Yasser Fathi Ibraheem, a Jordanian, were hanged at the Siwaqa Correctional and Rehabilitation Center for the killing of U.S. diplomat Laurence Foley.

Foley, a senior administrative officer with the U.S. Agency for International Development in Jordan, was gunned down in front of his house in Amman on the morning of October 28, 2002, while walking to his car.

When both suspects were arrested that December, the government issued a statement saying they had confessed to the killing and to being members of al Qaeda, including having ties to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

Both men were later convicted and sentenced to death.

Since that time, al-Zarqawi has become the most-wanted terrorist inside Iraq, accused of organizing terrorists to fight U.S. troops in Iraq on behalf of al Qaeda. He is believed to have plotted Foley's killing and was convicted by a Jordanian court in absentia for planning to bomb tourist hotels during millennium celebrations.