Americans In Jordan On Alert
Officials cautioned Americans in Jordan to be vigilant as authorities there investigated whether the shooting death of U.S. diplomat Laurence Foley was a planned attack against an American target.
The U.S. Embassy in Amman was closed Monday for all but emergency business, but other embassies in the region remained open. Further decisions about the Amman embassy, including when it will reopen, will be made once officials assess security conditions in the Jordanian capital, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said.
Foley's death served as a jolting reminder of American vulnerability in parts of the world where opposition to U.S. policies is fervent. In a city that Americans generally consider safe, diplomatic vehicles were escorted Monday by red beret-wearing special forces riding in jeeps equipped with machine guns.
Embassy officials warned U.S. citizens in Jordan to be cautious, to vary their travel routes - paying "particularly high" attention when entering or leaving their homes - and to report all suspicious activity to police.
No one claimed responsibility for the assassination, and U.S. officials did not immediately brand it an act of terrorism. The White House, however, said terrorism could not be ruled out, and Boucher said the decision to avoid the terrorism label was not made "out of any particular reticence."
"At this point, we have to know a little more before we start to describe it as terrorist," Boucher said.
John K. Naland, president of the American Foreign Service Association, said Foley's death was a "brutal terrorist attack" and called on Congress to upgrade security at diplomats' homes and in the places where they gather outside of work.
"We've always known we were a target," Naland said. "Obviously, with Sept. 11 and gearing up for possible events in Iraq, there is a heightened sense of threat. ... One hundred percent safety is impossible. However, there is a lot that can be done."
Foley, 60, an administrator at the U.S. Agency for International Development, was shot several times by a lone gunman as he was leaving for work. A Jordanian police official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the killing appeared to have been carried out by professionals who had followed Foley for some time.
U.S. officials said Foley probably was targeted outside his home because security at all U.S. embassies was tightened after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. It seemed to fit the pattern of other deadly attacks at so-called soft targets this year, including a church in Pakistan and a nightclub in Indonesia, Boucher said.
"All over the world, we've seen this terrible practice that when we are better able to protect what you might call the hard targets ... they tend to go looking for other things," Boucher said.
Foley was the executive officer of the USAID mission in Jordan, Boucher said. His place in the embassy hierarchy was "fairly high, but not the top guy," the spokesman said.
Foley was in Jordan helping with programs to deliver clean drinking water to poor families, U.S. Ambassador Edward W. Gnehm said. He had spent nearly 40 years in public service, starting as a Peace Corps volunteer in India in 1965, and had served in diplomatic posts in Bolivia, Peru and Zimbabwe, Gnehm said.
Foley is not the first American diplomat killed in the line of duty. Twelve Americans were among hundreds slain four years ago in twin bombings at U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, attacks blamed on Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida terror network. In March, embassy employee Barbara Green and her 17-year-old daughter were killed in a grenade attack on a church in Pakistan.
Five U.S. ambassadors have fallen victim to terrorists: Gordon Mein, killed in Guatemala in 1968; Cleo A. Noel in Sudan in 1973; Rodger Davies in Cyprus in 1974; Francis E. Meloy Jr. in Lebanon in June 1978; and Adolph Dubs in Afghanistan in 1979.
Arnold L. Raphel, the U.S. ambassador to Pakistan, was killed in 1988 in an attack on President Zia's airplane, but the slaying was not listed as an incident of terrorism.
By Sonya Ross