Jordan agrees to US missile deployment

American Patriot anti-missile rockets are to be set up in Jordan in the coming days, officials have confirmed, in a politically high-risk move for a kingdom that continues to maintain an official stance of neutrality in any American-led attack on Iraq.

Several hundred US troops will be needed to man the batteries, which will be on alert to shoot down Iraqi Scud missiles aimed at Israel and flying over Jordan.

In the 1991 Gulf war, Iraq fired 39 Scuds at Israel. Eight landed harmlessly in the Jordanian desert. Jordan signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1994 and now has relatively close trade and tourism links.

The Jordanian government accepts that a US attack on Iraq will be unpopular. Islamist feelings are on the rise in Jordan, where the radical group, the Muslim Brotherhood, has been growing.

The Patriots are likely to be placed east of Amman so Jordanians will recognise that they are able to defend Jordan's main cities. But the decision to allow their deployment makes the country vulnerable to the charge that it is indirectly helping defend Israel.

The Patriots are an upgraded version of the system which Washington supplied to Israel during the Gulf war. Their record of hitting Scuds was poor, and Israel has developed with the US a more advanced anti-missile system known as the Arrow. This will be Israel's main line of defence.

Positioning Patriots in Jordan is expected to make it easier for the US to hold Israel back from retaliating directly against Iraq for any Scuds that land in Israel.

Jordan has close military ties with the US, which equips and trains its army and air force, but it has made it clear it will not allow US attack troops to operate from its soil.