A Jordanian military court on Thursday sentenced three Syrians and one Iraqi to death for firing rockets at two U.S. warships in August 2005.
One of the Syrians, Mohammed Hassan Abdullah al-Sihly, is in police custody, but the other two Syrians, Abdul-Rahman al-Sihly and Abdullah al-Sihly, and the Iraqi, Amar al-Samera’i, remain at large and were tried in absentia.
The court acquitted Mohammed al-Sihly’s three sons, who also were in police custody, and sentenced five others to various jail terms ranging from two to 10 years.
The rockets missed, but the Aqaba Bay incident was the most serious attack on the U.S. Navy since the 2000 bombing in Yemen of the destroyer USS Cole, which killed 17 sailors.
Fired from a warehouse on the outskirts of the Red Sea resort of Aqaba, one rocket landed outside a Jordanian military hospital on the far side of the bay and killed a Jordanian soldier. Another fell across the border in Israel. It did not explode, but slightly wounded an Israeli taxi driver.