Jordanian authorities yesterday hardened their clampdown on Hamas, arresting three top leaders of the hardline Palestinian movement for illegal activity and then expelling one of them to Iran.
The measures triggered the wrath of Islamists in Jordan who dismissed them as "unjustified," calling for the release of the men and for a review by the authorities of relations with the Islamic Resistance Movement.
Political bureau member, Mr Musa Abu Marzuq, who had won his release from US jails in May 1997 after the intervention of the late King Hussein of Jordan, was put on the same Emirates aircraft that had brought him to Amman.
He was arrested with Hamas political bureau chief, Mr Khaled Meshaal, spokesman Mr Ibrahim Ghosheh and four aides at Queen Alia International Airport when they flew in from Iran despite arrest warrants against them and two other leaders who have gone into hiding in Jordan.
The others were referred to the state security court ahead of an eventual trial on charges including membership of a banned movement.
The Information Minister, Mr Ayman al-Majali, said the measures against Hamas were "sovereign and irrevocable".
"On several occasions the government warned Hamas leaders that they were violating national laws and overstepping their political and information role and threatening Jordan's security, but they ignored this," Mr Majali said.
Mr Abu Marzuq was "returned to where he came from" as, unlike the others who are Jordanians, he was a Yemeni national, he said.
At the end of August the Jordanian authorities issued the warrants against Hamas during which they closed the group's offices in Amman and rounded up 15 members for illegal activity. Jordan's King Abdullah II later said weapons were found in the Hamas offices.