U.S. Navy Ship Attacked in Jordan

AMMAN, Jordan - Attackers fired at least three rockets from Jordan early Friday, with one narrowly missing a docked U.S. Navy ship and killing a Jordanian soldier. It was the most serious militant attack on the Navy since the USS Cole was bombed in 2000.

Another rocket fell close to a nearby airport in neighboring Israel, officials said. Jordanian and Israeli authorities said militants fired the Katyusha rockets from a warehouse in the Jordanian Red Sea port of Aqaba.

A group linked to al-Qaida claimed responsibility in an Internet statement. The statement purportedly from the Abdullah Azzam Brigades could not immediately be verified.

The U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet, based in Bahrain, said two American amphibious ships attached to the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit were docked in Aqaba, about 210 miles south of the capital, Amman, when the rockets were fired toward them.

One rocket sailed over the bow of the USS Ashland and slammed into a Jordanian army warehouse at the port, killing soldier Ahmed Jamal Saleh, a Jordanian security official said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press.

The soldier died in an ambulance taking him to hospital, while another unidentified Jordanian also was wounded, the official said.