Jordan expels Iraqi diplomat after bread riots .  Rana Sabbagh  AMMAN 1996-08-23  Jordan , which has blamed Iraq for bread riots last week , has asked an Iraqi diplomat to leave , official and diplomatic sources said on Friday .  The main Friday prayers in southern Jordan that were the starting point for the riots a week ago passed peacefully under tight security imposed by the army with only brief demonstrations reported .  Adel Ibrahim , the Iraqi embassy 's press attache , was asked to leave " because he was carrying out duties incompatible with diplomatic norms " , one source told Reuters , implying he was accused of spying .  Ibrahim told Reuters by telephone from his embassy office in Amman that he " had not been notified " of any explusion order .  The government declined official comment .  Ibrahim 's assistant , Hussein Khalaf , was expelled earlier this year for similar reasons amid rising tension in bilateral ties after King Hussein began calling for change in Baghdad following top Iraqi defections in August 1995 .  Iraq retaliated then by expelling a junior administrator working in the Jordanian embassy in Baghdad but has continued its policy of trying to avoid public conflicts with Jordan -- its only secure route to the rest of the world .  Jordan has accused Iraq and a local pro-Baghdad party for the country 's worst unrest in seven years which erupted after it almost doubled the prices of bread last week under radical economic reforms agreed with the [START_ENT] International Monetary Fund [END_ENT] .  In Karak , where two days of riots flared last Friday , a few hundred young men lingered outside Omari mosque on leaving , shouting slogans for about 15 minutes .  " Disperse , abstain from forming groups and help maintain order , " army officers , who has enforced a loose curfew since the riots , told the crowd through loudspeakers .  The men shouted " Allahu Akbar " ( God is Greatest ) as a former Islamist deputy , Ahmed Kafawin , told soldiers the crowd would not cause trouble .  He had earlier mounted the mosque 's pulpit to demand release of detainees , an end to raids on houses and the cancelling of the bread price rises .  Armoured cars had patrolled streets in Karak , traditional bastion of communist ideology and Baath socialism that swept the region in the 1950s , and guarded entrances to the hill-top city famed for its Crusader castle before the prayers .  There was also heavy security in the crowded centre of Amman , where smaller clashes had erupted last Saturday , but Friday prayers at the main mosque ended quietly as police in full riot gear looked on .  The Jordanian Arab Socialist Baath Party , which has one deputy in the 80-seat lower house of parliament , has denied involvement in unrest which it blamed on government policies and rising economic hardship .  Government attempts to link the rioting to foreign influence has been treated with derision by those in the streets who blame the protests on severe economic hardships .
International Monetary Fund