AMMAN

Prosecutors in Jordan yesterday charged two men with the kidnapping and rape of two British women in fields near the Israeli border.

Four other men were charged with attempted rape and attempted kidnapping.

The alleged attack was the second incident involving assaults on foreign women in Jordan in a month.

Police said the women were raped early on Saturday in a vegetable grove in a town in the central Jordan Valley.

Prosecutors said police were searching for two other suspects believed to be hiding in Jordan. All the accused are Jordanian and could face the death penalty if convicted.

An investigation found the two female students could not find transport back to Amman after visits to the Jordan Valley and the nearby Dead Sea.

The women accepted an invitation from a Jordanian woman to spend the night at her house, a judicial official said. He said four drunk men sought to enter the house by force to kidnap the Britons.

The Jordanian woman sneaked them out a back door accompanied by her brother and his friend, the official added. On the road, the brother and his friend allegedly raped the Britons and dumped them in the vegetable grove.

The two women were studying Arabic at Damascus University, Syria, and came to Jordan for a visit during the Muslim festival of Eid.

Last month the US Embassy said an American woman was violently assaulted by a taxi driver in the capital, Amman. -AP