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Western leaders often criticize the Arab world for not speaking out against terrorism. They may now have less reason to complain. In Jordan on Thursday, over 20,000 people joined an antiterror march through the streets of the capital, Amman, organized in response to last month's discovery of an al-Qaeda plot to detonate chemical-laced bombs at American and government targets in the city. "The silent majority has started to speak out," said Queen Rania, who was among the marchers.

The Saudis haven't yet taken to the streets, but public opinion in the kingdom also appears to be swinging against extremism now that Saudis are again in the line of fire. In the industrial city of Yanbu on Saturday, four men attacked a Swiss engineering firm, a Holiday Inn hotel and a McDonalds, killing at least five Westerners. And last month, a suicide bomber struck a police building, killing five people, including an 11-year-old girl. An editorial in the Jidda daily Arab News mourned the slaughter: "What virtue, what nobility, what sense is there in a cause whose supporters can stoop so low as to write their propaganda in the blood of a child?" Finally, in Syria, a gun battle and explosion on Tuesday rocked the capital, Damascus. No one has taken credit for the blast, but it demonstrates anew that extremists aren't just attacking the West.

The terrorists may have hit Jordan and Saudi Arabia because of their governments' alliances with the U.S.; even Syria has cooperated in the fight against al-Qaeda. The U.S.-led occupation of Iraq has both inspired the terrorists and made it easier for them to strike within the region. "Iraq has become a vast magnet for [terrorists] around the world," says French terrorism expert Roland Jacquard. "Jihadist groups now figure they can start moving against enemy regimes because the situation is ripe for it."

U.S. and Jordanian officials believe Abu Mousab al-Zarqawi, a key ally of Osama bin Laden who is said to be in Iraq, was behind the plot in Amman. According to Jordanian officials, a 10-member al-Qaeda cell planned to blow up several key buildings in Amman using five massive bombs laced with poisonous industrial chemicals. Officials haven't named the chemicals seized, but a weapons expert with ties to the government said on Jordanian TV that the bombs could produce "gas, chemicals and flammable material and agents that could also affect the nerves."

In a televised confession, alleged cell leader Azmi Jaiousi claimed that al-Zarqawi recruited him in Iraq to carry out the attacks in Jordan. He said he communicated with al-Zarqawi by prepaid phone cards and messenger, and that al-Zarqawi sent him $170,000 for the purchase of vehicles that were packed with explosives and chemicals at hideouts in northern Jordan. He said that in an operation against the General Intelligence Department in Amman, he planned to use three trucks loaded with 20 tons of explosives. Late last week an audiotape attributed to al-Zarqawi confirmed that an attack had been planned, although it denied the cell intended to use chemicals. Some U.S. embassies in the region braced for possible biochemical attack, with hazard suits at the ready and precautionary injections given to staff. But the ultimate target remains America. "We're operating against the unknown deadline of a major terrorist attack in the U.S.," an embassy official in one Muslim country told Time. "That's what drives us." Although the Syrian authorities allowed unusually quick access to the scene in Damascus, details are sketchy about what happened. At least four militants set off an explosion beneath a vehicle in the affluent residential district of Mazza before using gunfire and grenades in a firefight with Syrian security forces. At least two terrorists, a security officer and a bystander were killed. "These people just want to spread insecurity and fear," said one local man, surveying the scene afterward. "We're not used to this here." A U.S. official told Time that Syrian security may have been pursuing the terrorists and disrupted a planned attack. The official says the Syrians may have been hunting the cell because of links to the thwarted plot in Jordan.

The Damascus, Amman and Riyadh operations are further indications, authorities say, of a new generation of extremists working without explicit instructions from the top. "They have become much more amorphous," says a French security official. "Al-Qaeda is no longer the enemy," adds the U.S. official. "The enemy is the phenomenon of militant jihadists who can spring up without being run by the al-Qaeda leaders." That's a prospect that fills many ordinary Arabs with horror — and may prompt more widespread revulsion against the terrorists in the Middle East.

• SCOTT MACLEOD | Cairo
• Attacks mount, but Arabs speak out against extremism