AMMAN, 7 July 2005 — Jordan said yesterday it had rearrested the spiritual mentor of Iraq’s Al-Qaeda leader Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi for alleged contact with “terror groups” just a week after he was freed from six months behind bars. Issam Barqawi, better known as Sheikh Abu Mohammad Al-Maqdisi who molded the militant views of Zarqawi, had been released on June 28 after a six-month detention at intelligence headquarters following his acquittal at a trial of Jordanian and Saudi sympathizers of Al-Qaeda.

The family of the 43-year-old Sunni Muslim Sheikh said he was arrested on Tuesday night while watching an interview he conducted on Arabic television channel Al-Jazeera. “The authorities found that he made contacts with outside terrorist groups and the results of the investigation by security forces will be announced later,” Deputy Prime Minister Marwan Al-Muasher told reporters.

An official who requested anonymity said Maqdisi’s release had been a failed attempt by the authorities to prod the cleric to publicly condemn Zarqawi and turn his mentor into an enemy. “We were sitting watching television and we heard the door bell. Three intelligence men told us they wanted our father for 10 minutes,” Mohammad, 12, his son told Reuters by phone from the town of Zarqa, where fellow Jordanian Zarqawi was born. “He went with them and we haven’t heard from him since.”

Zarqawi spent four years in the same prison cell with Maqdisi in Jordan and supporters say the top militant still pays allegiance to Maqdisi as a spiritual leader who taught him how to “persevere and strengthen his faith”. Sources close to Maqdisi said the authorities were clearly upset the cleric’s comments to Jazeera did not disavow Zarqawi even though he criticized some of his methods in Iraq.

“The authorities counted on Sheikh Maqdisi openly criticizing Sheikh Zarqawi but our Sheikh was not ready to give them this chance,” said one militant who did not want to be identified.

Maqdisi, whose 19-year-old son Omar died in Iraq fighting US forces, has called on Zarqawi not to alienate Iraq’s majority Shiites, only those collaborating with US troops and criticized bombings in public places that harm civilians.

Maqdisi said last week he remained committed to Sunni orthodoxy and agreed with the broad aims of Zarqawi’s war in Iraq but had reservations about random suicide bombings that hurt Muslims more than US troops or Iraqi collaborators. “There is a necessity to avoid civilian gatherings of women and children who sadly have in many instances become the real cannon fodder in these jihadist bombings,” he said.

The Sunni fundamentalist has long been accused by US military and Iraqi officials of seeking to provoke a sectarian civil war in Iraq. Both Zarqawi and Maqdisi were released in 1999 under a general amnesty issued by Jordan’s King Abdullah but Maqdisi was later detained for another case, while Zarqawi left Jordan to Afghanistan.

Jordanian officials will travel to Syria to seek the extradition of two Jordanian fugitives arrested there during a clash with suspected militants, Moasher said. Syria said Monday it captured two “terrorists” - Sharif Aied Saif Smadi and the wife of his brother, Mohammed, who is on the run - during a clash with extremists.

“The Smadi brothers are wanted in Jordan in connection with 138 vicious crimes. They are the most dangerous criminals in Jordan,” Moasher said.

“We don’t know what they did in Syria but they are wanted in Jordan and we are going to ask for their extradition in order to put them on trial,” he said. The brothers headed a criminal gang known as Tawahin Al-Udwan and are wanted in Jordan for a series of crimes including armed robbery. Last year, they escaped from court.

Meanwhile, Syrian security forces yesterday arrested two more members of an alleged “terrorist group” involved in a deadly clash outside Damascus earlier in the week, official media said.

“Security forces succeeded today in arresting two other members of the terrorist group which was involved in Monday’s clash,” the official SANA news agency said, quoting an official from the ministry of information. The two people arrested were the Jordanian Mohammad Islam Ben Abdel Rahman Ahmad Smadi and a wanted woman, Rihab Shehap, the official, adding that security forces were looking for other members of the group.