Two killed in Amman bomb blast

Car bombings are quite rare in Jordan

Two people have been killed in a car bomb explosion in the Jordanian capital, Amman, which reportedly happened near the home of a high-ranking anti-terrorism investigator.

Police and witnesses said the two passers-by, a 17-year-old Egyptian and a 24-year-old Iraqi, were killed as the blast ripped through a densely-populated area of the Jabal Amman neighbourhood at 0730 local time (0530 GMT).

A police officer, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the Associated Press that a bomb in a parked Toyota had exploded.

The car belonged to Yasmin Burjak, the wife of Lt Col Ali Burjak of the Jordanian Government's Anti-Terrorism Unit, a senior security official told the news agency.

He said it was parked near the couple's house and had been triggered by a timing device.

"This appears to be a message to the Jordanian security apparatus at this crucial time," he said, in reference to Jordan's support for the US-led war on terror.

Mr Burjak was highly involved in an investigation which led to the trial of 28 men charged with conspiracy to carry out terror attacks on US and Israeli targets in Jordan during the millennium celebrations.

One of them, a Jordanian-American man, was sentenced to death earlier this month, but cleared of having links to Osama Bin Laden's al-Qaeda network.

Four others were sentenced to death in September 2000.

Car bombings are rare in Jordan. The most recent such attacks, in 1997, were blamed on a Muslim militant group.