WAR CRIPPLES TOURISM IN JORDAN

Petra - An eerie silence grips the Nabatean splendors of Petra, Jordan's first tourist destination, where the only visitors to be seen are foreign journalists in the kingdom to cover the war in neighbouring Iraq.

The ongoing US-British offensive in Iraq has killed tourism in the southern red-rose archeological site of Petra with its imposing tombs sculpted into the rock just as it has crippled it around the Roman temples of Jerash in the north.

Jordan has been striving hard to shake off a slump in visitors, which followed the outbreak of the Palestinian intifada against Israeli rule two and a half years ago and was later compounded due to cancellations after the September 11 attacks.

From Petra to Jerash, shops and stalls manned by souvenir hawkers are closing one after the other with tourist guides desperately seeking to recycle themselves in new jobs.