Bin Laden is not a leader, he is just another Muslim, he represents the opinions and tendencies of some Muslims and he has to be allowed to speak freely

Jordanian man

Friday prayers are usually a good occasion to start such demonstrations. But for the first Friday since the strikes, it was rather quiet in the Jordanian capital with only a few small demonstrations here and there.

In downtown Amman, by the old al Husseini mosque, men dispersed after their end-of-week worshipping. But some lingered and were eager to give their opinion.

Ali Jaafar, an elderly Sunni scholar, says God will punish the US for bombing Afghanistan.

The Jordanian capital was rather quiet on Friday

"Why bomb a whole people, a whole country, when they're only after one man," he says. "And anyway, where is the proof that it was really Bin Laden, the US hasn't presented the world with concrete proof."

Bin Laden was on television all over the world last Sunday, saying he gave his blessing to the Muslims who carried out the operation that destroyed the World Trade Center and damaged the Pentagon.

Still, no one here is convinced of Bin Laden's guilt - they maintain that it was the work of Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency. This is perhaps their way of trying to distance themselves and the Arab world from the horror of the 11 September attacks.

No hero

But Bin Laden has not turned into a hero for people here, as he has for some Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, for example.

It is not Jordan that joined the international coalition against terror, but it is the international community that is finally joining in our decade-long fight to defeat these forces of evil

Jordan Times editorial

"He is not a leader, he is just another Muslim, he represents the opinions and tendencies of some Muslims and he has to be allowed to speak freely," said another man.

Such opinions are probably a relief for the Jordanian authorities but they do not bridge the gap. Jordan is one of the only Arab and Muslim countries that has shown open support for the US-led campaign against terrorism, even after the military strikes started.

An editorial in the Jordan Times this week set the tone. "It is not Jordan that joined the international coalition against terror," stated the editorial, "but it is the international community that is finally joining in our decade-long fight to defeat these forces of evil."

The editorial started by saying the country had been angered to hear that a terrorist cell linked to Bin Laden had planned to kill King Abdullah II and his family last summer during their holidays aboard a yacht on the Mediterranean.

Jordan has been fighting its own home-grown Islamists for years, trying to keep them from winning more seats in the parliament. There are now unconfirmed reports of arrests among the Islamists and this week the government adopted new press and anti terrorism laws, introducing tougher penalties against any publication or individual who threatened national security.

The possibility of backlashes with such measures is never far away.