200,000-plus march in Jordan against Zarqawi

Good. VERY good. Via the Washington Times:

AMMAN, Jordan — At least 200,000 persons demonstrated yesterday against the recent bombings of three luxury hotels, while a new online statement attributed to terrorist leader Abu Musab Zarqawi defended the attacks and threatened to cut off the head of Jordan’s King Abdullah II.

An anti-terrorist demonstration of such size is unprecedented in the Arab world, where Zarqawi, his mentor, Osama bin Laden, and their al Qaeda organization have attained folk-hero status among Muslim masses.

“Zarqawi, from Amman, we say to you: ‘You are a coward,’ ” protesters chanted while brandishing banners with the names of their tribes from every part of Jordan.

A similar protest in Jordan two days after the attacks on three hotels in the capital, which killed 59 persons, mustered several thousand people.

One attacker blew himself up at a wedding party in the ballroom of the Radisson SAS hotel. Seventeen relatives of the bride and groom died.

“More than 100,000 people took part in the demonstration which left the al-Husseini mosque and then moved towards Amman town hall,” security forces spokesman Bashir al-Daajeh told Agence France-Presse.

“Their number increased as the demonstrators were approaching the town hall and then reached 250,000,” he estimated.

The WashTimes also reports that Zarqawi was unusually defensive with comments posted on an Islamic website:

Also yesterday, a diatribe posted on an Islamic Web site and attributed to Zarqawi was full of Islamist bluster but unusually defensive about the hotel attacks.

It said of King Abdullah: “Your star is fading. You will not escape your fate, you descendant of traitors. We will be able to reach your head and chop it off.”

Is the Muslim world finally waking up and seeing as well as understanding the havoc Islamic extremists are wreaking around the world?

One can only hope.

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