Jordanians Deplore ‘Brutal Attack’ Against Iraqis : Reaction: Amman accuses U.S. and allies of wanting war option. Thousands protest in Arab, Muslim lands.

AMMAN, Jordan —  The Jordanian government and people Thursday deplored the American-led bombing of Baghdad, declaring it a brutal attack that left the Arab nation seething with anger.

“Tonight, Saddam attacks Israel,” warned one Amman resident Thursday--a comment that, hours later, was eerily proved true.

From supermarket checkout lines to civil defense centers, reaction to the onslaught of war was bitter, bellicose and occasionally violent as Jordan voiced its support for Iraq after months of asserted neutrality. But the nation made no move to enter the conflict.

Thousands of Arabs and Palestinians demonstrated in support of Iraq in Lebanon, Morocco and Sudan, where students chanted, “To the holy war! To the holy war!”

While pundits worried over the postwar changes in the regional balance, reaction on the streets of Middle East cities was restrained, with only Kuwaiti exiles celebrating openly at the prospect of Iraq being forced out of their homeland.

Jordan accused the United States and its Western and Arab allies of being “determined to follow a war option from the beginning,” delaying the start of war only to buy time to build up their forces.

“Everyone who took part in this will bear the responsibility before God, people and history in regard to the objective of destroying an Arab military, scientific and human capability,” the government said in a statement distributed to the foreign press here.

Fully throwing its weight to Iraq, the declaration added:

“Jordan’s leadership, government and people deplore what has happened during the first few hours of today, which constitutes a brutal attack against an Arab and Muslim country and people which has always acted to help its Arab brethren.”

Throughout Amman, as allied forces continued pounding targets in Iraq, just beyond Jordan’s eastern border, on Thursday morning, thousands of outraged Jordanians and Palestinians crowded outside civil defense centers, offering to volunteer for combat duty in the region.

“George Bush thinks he’s the boss of the world, but after this war, he won’t even be there!” shouted Mohammed Kamal, a 27-year-old civil engineer who earned his graduate degree at Kansas State University, outside one such center downtown.

“I served six months in Ft. Riley. I know how to attack Americans--not the ordinary citizens, but the soldiers.

“And I am not alone,” he said. “We are all willing to fight. Even my baby daughter; I am going to push her into war. My mom, my dad--all of them will fight. They started the war but, man, we’re going to end it.”

The Amman home of the Egyptian ambassador to Jordan was stoned and several foreign reporters were assaulted by groups of Palestinians. People cheered Iraqi radio claims of American planes downed, and rejected reports by American and British broadcasters about the success of the anti-Iraq air raids.

In Lebanon, about 1,000 protesters held a pro-Iraq demonstration outside the American University in Beirut.

The Iraqi missile attack on Israel, which occurred early this morning Amman time, immensely complicated the equation for this country. It puts Jordan in the tight spot King Hussein has tried to avoid by diplomacy despite the overwhelming pro-Iraqi sentiment on the streets.

But once the U.N. deadline for Iraqi withdrawal from Kuwait passed at midnight Tuesday, the Jordanian strategy was in jeopardy. The possibility that Iraq and Israel would clash over--or in--Jordanian territory became an immediate possibility.

Just before war broke out early Thursday, the king told Jordanians in a nationally televised address:

“We will resist and fight fiercely if it (war) is imposed on us.”

His government and 75,000-man armed forces, he said, “are determined to prevent anyone whosoever from crossing (Jordanian territory) in any direction whatever.”

He said the military forces were on full alert. Jordanian units had been deployed along the border with Israel and the occupied West Bank the week before. Reserves were called up over the past 48 hours.

But Jordan’s military is no match for its big neighbors. The air force flies dated American-built F-5 fighters and French Mirages.

Meanwhile, some reassurances were offered Thursday about the fate of Western hostages still held by Muslim extremists in Lebanon. The leader of Hezbollah, which is believed to be holding some of the six American hostages, said none would be executed in retaliation for the American attack against Iraq.

“America is preparing thousands of coffins for its soldiers,” said Hezbollah leader Hussein Moussawi, on Tuesday. “Adding 10 or 15 more wouldn’t make a difference.”

While the Jordanian government continued to reject Iraq’s Aug. 2 invasion of Kuwait, none of the dozens of Jordanians interviewed Thursday on the streets of Amman mentioned the Iraqi conquest.

“America,” concluded an older man volunteering for armed service, “has now ruined all its interests in this region.”

Analysts in the Middle East predicted that an Iraqi defeat still will damage U.S. relations in the area despite the support of Arab and other Middle East opponents of Saddam Hussein.

“In the Arab world, I anticipate very violent reactions to the armed conflict, because people are sensitive against foreign military presence on Arab soil,” said a Jordanian official.

“They are very sensitive to the recurrence of neocolonialism. . . . They are very sensitive against the killing of Muslims and Arabs by foreigners.”

In a telephone interview, a Western diplomat in a Middle East country said that a short war might temporarily strengthen the United States and its allies among the wealthy, despotic Arab states.

But any perceived failure to defeat Hussein could trigger bloody uprisings, the diplomat added.

“At the least, you will see the Americans viewed as the defilers of the region,” he said. “If the radicals prevail, positive American influence will be nil.”

Another Jordanian official said the turmoil of war and its aftermath could destabilize many Arab governments beyond Iraq.

“The future economic development of the region is going to be further constrained,” he said. “The gap between this area and Europe is going to be widened, as well as between the haves and have-nots in the Arab world. So war will have a very negative long-term social-political impact on the whole Muslim and Arab society.”

Even in Egypt, one of Hussein’s most intractable opponents, there was little public display of joy, although many ordinary people spoke with a sense of satisfaction of the early success by the allied forces.

“I feel sorry for the people of Iraq,” said Mona Adelsalim, a Cairo bank teller, “but he (Hussein) is getting what he deserves.”

At Amman’s modern Safeway International supermarket, shoppers froze in the aisles to listen attentively to a midday speech by Saddam Hussein blasted over the store’s public address system.

“Somehow, yes, I very much like this man. He’s tough, and the Arabs need a tough leader now,” the assistant manager said.

He turned to restocking a “disaster table” that starkly illustrated the other side of Jordan’s reaction to the outbreak of war on its border. Neatly stacked in rows were flashlights, candles, gauze, bandages, batteries and rolls of masking tape, which families methodically used to fortify their windows against possible chemical bomb blasts.

And despite its tough official stance, the Jordanian government also was taking precautions on a far broader scale on Thursday.

The government stepped up security at foreign embassies and diplomatic residences, but the home of Egyptian Ambassador Muhab Mokbel was pelted with stones early Thursday, breaking three windows, according to a report by Reuters news agency.

Egypt has deployed troops with the anti-Iraqi alliance in Saudi Arabia.

Extra police officers were stationed at the home of U.S. Ambassador Roger Harrison, which stands behind the Iraqi Embassy in the Jebel Amman district.

“All foreigners are a jewel around our neck and we shall protect them in whatever necessary way,” a top security official was quoted as saying.

In a speech televised Wednesday night, just hours before the bombing began, King Hussein called on Jordanians to treat with kindness foreigners who elected to remain in Jordan after Tuesday’s U.N. deadline for an Iraqi withdrawal from Kuwait passed.

Meanwhile, a number of foreign reporters were harassed and beaten Thursday by groups of angry Jordanians and Palestinians. A Japanese television crew that entered the teeming Baqa Palestinian camp had to be rescued by police when refugees surrounded them.

A British reporter for London’s Daily Mail and an American photographer for Time magazine were punched by angry men in the streets, and an Italian journalist was hospitalized with a broken rib and lacerations after several Jordanians attacked him outside the downtown defense center, where they were volunteering for combat duty.

In Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, a Kuwaiti government minister offered thanks for the American-led strike against Iraq.

Abdul Rahman al Awadi, the exiled minister of state for Cabinet affairs, expressed his government’s gratitude “for this historical event that’s happened not only for the tiny state of Kuwait, but for the great cause that Kuwait stands for.”

“I think we’re seeing at this moment of history a change, and I hope this will be a change that lasts,” he said, referring to the international community’s response to the aggression of one nation against another.

Kuwaitis inside Kuwait, he said, “are relieved a little bit because the Iraqi soldiers are busy doing other things, either fleeing or defending themselves. They are thinking that the whole world has come to the rescue for a principle that is worth fighting for.”

Overall, he said, of Kuwaitis’ reaction: “The first thing is a sigh of relief. Something’s being done. At last we’re going somewhere, even if it’s dangerous.”