Seven Iraqis, including a senior embassy official and two wealthy businessmen, were murdered as they sat down to a Saturday night dinner party in the Jordanian capital, Amman, in what Jordanian officials described as a mafia-style execution.
The killings provoked outrage from the Iraqi government who despatched diplomats and security officials to Amman to investigate. Jordanian officials said the attack could have been the bloody denouement of a vicious struggle among powerful Iraqis for control of the lucrative sanctions-busting trade.
The murdered diplomat, Mr Hikmet al-Hajou, was the second top official at the Iraqi embassy. Iraqi opposition sources said yesterday he had been Iraq's most senior spy in Jordan. His wife was also killed along with five other Iraqis and an Egyptian. They were hacked to death with knives after their hands were bound and their mouths taped. A doctor at the ElBashir hospital in Amman said three of the victims had their throats cut.
The sole survivor, a Greek woman, reportedly told police that there had been four or five killers who spoke Arabic with Iraqi accents. Her condition was described as critical.
The murders took place as the victims sat down to eat, after the daily Ramadan fast, in the West Amman mansion of Sami George, a rich Iraqi Christian who was among the dead. The Greek survivor was his girlfriend.
Also reported among the dead was Nemir Awji, part of another powerful Iraqi business family who are currently building a hotel and shopping complex in Amman; an Iraqi Kurd called Kaka Sadeq, and two of Mr George's employees, one Egyptian and one Iraqi.
An activist for the opposition Iraqi National Congress in London ruled out any opposition involvement in the killings. "Our sense is that this is feuding inside the regime, probably to do with money," said an INC spokesman.
Mr George's business dealings had been linked to powerful figures in President Saddam Hussein's regime, in particular Mr Bazan Tikriti, the former Iraqi intelligence chief who is the present ambassador in Switzerland.
Opposition sources said that Mr al-Hajou had formerly been one of Mr Tikriti's senior lieutenants in intelligence.
An official Iraqi government statement yesterday described the killings as "a heinous crime" and demanded an immediate investigation by Jordan.
"Iraq is deeply concerned about the repeated and unprecedented attacks on its diplomats in Jordan," the statement said.
Relations between Iraq and Jordan soured last month after the execution in Baghdad of four Jordanians suspected of smuggling car parts worth £500, despite Jordanian pleas for clemency.
Reuters adds:
The US Secretary of State, Ms Madeleine Albright, yesterday said President Saddam was digging himself a "deeper hole" on sanctions after he threatened to put an to end UN arms inspections.
Ms Albright said international sanctions imposed on Iraq after its invasion of Kuwait in 1990 would remain until Baghdad allows UN arms inspectors to complete their work and President Saddam "comes clean" on the country's weapons of mass destruction.
President Saddam on Saturday threatened to carry out a demand from the Iraqi parliament to end arms inspections unless sanctions were lifted. He made the threat in a defiant speech marking the 1991 start of the Gulf War against a US-led coalition.
"Threatening to throw UNSCOM (the UN Special Commission) out does not solve the situation for Saddam Hussein," Ms Albright told NBC's Meet the Press yesterday. She said President Saddam's statements "make very clear he is digging the sanctions hole deeper because he can't get out of it if UNSCOM is not able to do its work and declare that he in fact has fulfilled his obligations."
Ms Albright said she thought the Iraqi president was drawing more international attention to the "fact he may have biological and chemical weapons, by acting as if he can't deal with an inspection that is going to look at it."
UN chief arms inspector, Mr Richard Butler, arrived in the Gulf on Saturday before heading to Baghdad in an effort to find a diplomatic resolution to the crisis.
President Saddam has urged Iraqis to volunteer for training to confront what he called threats from the US. Iraqi television said on Saturday the call was issued at a meeting of the command of the ruling Ba'ath Party on Friday night.