Pressure on King to Denounce Invasion

Jordan's King Abdullah is fighting a rearguard action against rising pressure from Islamist as well as leftwing parties to denounce the US and British invasion of Iraq as "illegitimate" and expel American troops from his country.

In his sharpest comments since the war started, the western-educated monarch this week condemned US plans for regime change in Iraq. "The Iraqi people are the only people that have the right to choose their leadership," he said.

He also bluntly denounced the killing of civilians. "As a father, I feel the pain of every Iraqi family, of every child and every father. At the same time I am aware that Jordanians' loyalty, their national feelings and their pride make them absolutely reject and condemn what is happening to their brothers in Iraq, the killing and destruction," he told the official news agency, Petra, in a long interview.

But his remarks stopped short of the demands being made in scores of street protests in Palestinian refugee camps as well as by Jordanian groups linked to the Muslim Brotherhood, which is legal here, unlike in nearby Syria.

Its political arm, the Islamic Action Front, this week called for the expulsion of US troops from Jordanian soil and described the king's permission for them to enter as a "grave sin and a violation of national principles and interests".

Hundreds of US forces are in Jordan, manning three Patriot missile batteries designed to shoot down Iraqi Scud missiles aimed at Jordan or Israel. Other special forces have entered Iraq's western desert from Jordan to secure airfields and disable Scud batteries.

In the previous Gulf war Jordan's then king, Hussein, refused to join the US-led coalition and called for an Arab solution, a position which was interpreted as being pro-Saddam. His son, King Abdullah, has tilted towards the US by agreeing to let its special forces be based in Jordan.

It was a hard choice since Jordan's economy depends on Iraqi oil, provided at subsidised prices. The hope was that the war would be short and Jordan could contain the pressures it unleashed.

Western diplomats have hinted that US bombers overflew Israel and Jordan to strike targets in Iraq after Turkey refused to open its airspace at the beginning of the war. Jordanian officials repeatedly declined to discuss the issue publicly until in his interview this week the king said that he had "firmly rejected the request".

Several hundred young Palestinians marched through Amman's Wihdat refugee camp, one of 13 in the country, after noontime prayers yesterday, chanting slogans such as "America is the head of the snake" and "Saddam, don't worry, we are with you".

As well as being pressed by the Islamists and the Palestinians, the king has been strongly challenged in a petition signed by 95 prominent Jordanians, including a former prime minister and several MPs. They called on him to condemn not just the deaths of civilians but the war itself.

"Moral, national and legal duty obliges all Arab governments, including Jordan's, clearly to denounce the aggression on Iraq as illegitimate," said the petitioners, who included centrists and leftwingers.

The king's supporters produced a rival petition from 104 people, mostly tribal leaders, pledging their allegiance. State-owned Arabic newspapers were bombarded yesterday with advertisements from scores of leading Jordanian individuals, organisations and businesses praising the king.

King Abdullah has described the unusual clash of opinions as a sign of "Jordanian pluralism" but in an apparent hint of nervousness he told the government news agency that he hoped Jordan's "internal front" would stay united.