plexus
28-10-02, 11:39
AMMAN - A senior U.S. diplomat was shot dead by an unknown assailant in front of his Amman home while heading for work on Monday, the first-ever assassination of a Western diplomat in Jordan, diplomats and officials said.
The official, named by diplomats as Lawrence Foley, a senior administrator at the U.S. Agency for International Development, USAID, was killed at 7:30 am (00:30 a.m. EST) by an assailant who then fled, a security official said.
A Jordanian security source said Foley, aged 62, was shot at close range with three bullets in the chest before the assailant and his possible accomplices fled the scene of the shooting in an affluent area of the capital Amman.
One assailant or more was behind the criminal shooting and investigations are ongoing to reveal the culprits," the security official told Reuters.
A Western diplomat earlier told Reuters the assailant fired a few shots before escaping from the scene.
Foley's wife immediately notified security officials who rushed to the scene.
Witnesses said Foley was shot in the garage of his two-story villa in a neighborhood close to the bustling commercial Mecca Street in the capital.
"There was blood near the Mercedes car that was parked in his indoor garage," said a witness close to the site of the shooting, where anti-terrorist experts and senior officials in the presence of U.S. security personnel were gathering information. The area was put under a security cordon.
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The official, named by diplomats as Lawrence Foley, a senior administrator at the U.S. Agency for International Development, USAID, was killed at 7:30 am (00:30 a.m. EST) by an assailant who then fled, a security official said.
A Jordanian security source said Foley, aged 62, was shot at close range with three bullets in the chest before the assailant and his possible accomplices fled the scene of the shooting in an affluent area of the capital Amman.
One assailant or more was behind the criminal shooting and investigations are ongoing to reveal the culprits," the security official told Reuters.
A Western diplomat earlier told Reuters the assailant fired a few shots before escaping from the scene.
Foley's wife immediately notified security officials who rushed to the scene.
Witnesses said Foley was shot in the garage of his two-story villa in a neighborhood close to the bustling commercial Mecca Street in the capital.
"There was blood near the Mercedes car that was parked in his indoor garage," said a witness close to the site of the shooting, where anti-terrorist experts and senior officials in the presence of U.S. security personnel were gathering information. The area was put under a security cordon.
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