Al-Qaeda was behind a planned wave of terror attacks across Amman, targeting among other sites the U.S. embassy in the Jordanian capital. The plot was broken apart last month but the news will call attention to inroads that Islamist elements have made in Jordan, a Western ally and a country that has been largely insulated from the Arab Spring revolutions. The Muslim Brotherhood has been linked to a wave of protests that have swept across Jordan and which have seen the King among other officials criticized, a rarity in the kingdom and a destabilizing development. Stability in Jordan has been further undermined by spillover from the war raging in Syria, which has broken into three-way proxy war between regional Sunni countries, Shiite countries, and Kurdish groups.

[Photo: Vyacheslov Argenberg / Flickr]