Before this week's hotel bombings in Jordan, militants associated with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's al-Qaeda affiliated group had yet to export devastation on the scale they wreak weekly in Iraq.

But Arab governments have been all too aware of the danger they might. Most, including Jordan, have wrestled since the late 1980s to contain the influence of veteran jihadists among their nationals who cut their teeth fighting the Soviet Union alongside the Afghan mujahideen.