Posted on 11/13/2005 7:19:47 AM PST by wjersey
AMMAN, Jordan - Jordan on Sunday arrested the Iraqi wife of a suicide bomber, who tried but failed to blow herself up in attacks that killed 57 people, after police were tipped-off to her existence by an al-Qaida claim that a total of four bombers had carried out the attacks.
The woman failed to blow herself up at the Radisson SAS hotel on Wednesday night after apparently struggling with the cord on her explosives belt, Deputy Prime Minister Marwan Muasher said. Her husband saw her fumbling and "pushed her out of the ballroom," he said. "Once she was out, he blew himself up."
Officials said the woman, age 35, would confess on state-run TV later Sunday.
The dramatic turn in the case came as Jordanian officials identified the three suicide bombers, including the woman's husband, as Iraqis, in their first detailed explanation of who carried out the deadly attacks.
The woman was identified as the sister of Jordanian-born Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's former right hand man in Iraq's volatile Anbar province.
The involvement of al-Zarqawi in the triple hotel bombings is a worrying development for the region, indicating that the feared terrorist or his leaders have deadly designs and abilities beyond war-ravaged Iraq's borders.
Jordan's deputy premier said the four Iraqis drove into Jordan from Iraq on Nov. 4, just five days before the attacks and rented an apartment in western Amman. They took taxis to the attack sites on Wednesday.
The would-be woman bomber was identified as Sajida Mubarak Atrous al-Rishawi, 35, the sister of the slain former militant Mubarak Atrous al-Rishawi, the former right-hand man of al-Zarqawi, the head of al-Qaida in Iraq.
Muasher said the brother was killed by U.S. forces in the one-time terrorist stronghold of Fallujah, west of Baghdad, but it was unclear when.
Al-Qaida in Iraq had already claimed responsibility for the bombings, which it said four bombers carried out. The group said the attacks were to strike at Jordan's support for the United States and other Western powers.
A top Jordanian security official, insisting on anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the press, said the woman was arrested Sunday morning at an Amman "safe house," in the same Amman district where her husband had rented a furnished apartment earlier in the week.
He said Jordanian security was "tipped off" by al-Qaida's claim.
"There were leads that more people had been involved, but it was not clear that it was a woman and we had no idea on her nationality," the official said.
He said intelligence officials were interrogating the woman.
King Abdullah, who also said Sunday that three Iraqi men and one woman carried out the attacks, has pledged to target anyone supporting or sympathizing with such terrorists.
Muasher said the three suicide bombers who attacked the Grand Hyatt, Radisson SAS and Days Inn hotels Wednesday — killing 57 others — were all Iraqis. They were identified as al-Rishawi's husband, Ali Hussein Ali al-Shamari, 35, from Anbar; Rawad Jassem Mohammed Abed, 23; and Safaa Mohammed Ali, 23.
The four left their apartment on Wednesday — the day of the attacks — and took taxis to the hotels, including the Radisson, where almost 300 people were attending a Jordanian-Palestinian wedding reception in one of the hotel's ballrooms.
"It is clear from the way she was dressed and the explosive belts with ball bearings that they wanted to target innocent civilians, and also wanted to inflict the biggest number of casualties and victims," Muasher said.
Al-Rishawi entered the hotel's reception with her husband. When the husband noticed his wife was having trouble detonating her bomb by pulling its primer cord, he "pushed her out of the ballroom. Once she was out, he blew himself up," Muasher said.
The bomb strapped to the man's body was packed with the powerful explosive RDX and ball bearings and was designed to kill as many people as possible, Muasher said.
Investigations showed that no Jordanians were involved in the actual attacks, but several Jordanian followers of al-Zarqawi have been arrested, the deputy premier added.
Al-Qaida in Iraq's operation in Jordan — its deadliest inside a neighboring Mideast country — raised fears that al-Zarqawi's terror campaign has gained enough momentum to spread throughout the region.
Jordan's confirmation of the Iraqi link could harm already bruised relations with its eastern neighbor after both have previously traded diplomatic blows over the crossing backward and forward of militants.
Earlier Sunday, Iraq's defense minister offered Jordan its support in the hotel bombings probe and warned that unchecked violence in Iraq will spread terrorism across the region.
"We are partners in facing terrorism," Defense Minister Saadoun al-Dulaimi told The Associated Press. "Amman's ordeal and Jordan's ordeal is the ordeal of all Iraqis."
The terrorists' "target is to kill tolerance and destroy coexistence in Arab and Muslim cities," al-Dulaimi said.
Al-Dulaimi also criticized Syria for letting Islamic extremists train on its soil and enter Iraq to carry out terrorist attacks.
"Let me tell the Syrians that if the Iraqi volcano explodes no neighboring capital will be saved," the Iraqi official said. "We have a 620 kilometer (385 mile) border with this country and we have 620 problems with the Syrians."
The United States and Iraq have repeatedly called on Syria to lock down its borders and stop al-Qaida in Iraq extremists allied to Jordanian-born militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi entering Iraq.
Wednesday's Amman hotel attacks sparked the largest Jordanian manhunt in living history and angered most of this desert kingdom's 5.4 million people and many of the 400,000 Iraqis living here.
Al-Zarqawi, who traveled from militant training grounds in Afghanistan to Iraq before the U.S.-led 2003 war, has been sentenced to death in absentia in Jordan for terror-related crimes here. He has vowed to topple the kingdom's moderate Hashemite rulers.
Failed? Maybe she just wanted to be rid of the loser.
This should prove to be very interesting.
The old, "lets kill ourselves, you go first, trick".
Odd that they both were at the same hotel.
I'm guessing that's not a pleasant thing. She's probably wishing by now she hadn't fumbled with that cord.
hmmmm...so it wasnt the israelis??? as many ARAB's in the streets of jordon believe???
DISGUSTING PIG!
Considering she would be a glorified dorm mother for the 72 virgins, I can see why she went "oh dear, bye dear"
I'll ask the obvious question here. Is this an "expansion" from terrorist hits in Iraq, or is it getting so difficult in Iraq for Zarqawi that he has to choose softer targets elsewhere?
LMAO!
The world is full of these kind of "officials" who are undoubtably sworn to secrecy, yet betray their employer and, as in this case, their country.
I could care less about this Jordanian official, or any other countries officials. It is those working (supposedly) for the United States to whom I refer.
I have nothing but contemp for these people and believe they should be punished most severely for it.
The way to rid the world of suicide bombers is to backtrack their lives, eliminate their children, grandchildren, mothers fathers, cousins, aunts and uncles. You would only have to do that once or twice, they would find another way to murder.
We teach that in kindergarten, I'm pretty sure...
re: Odd that they both were at the same hotel
Isn't it though? I would think it would be nearly impossible for both people to detonate their bomb. Surely the one that went first would kill or disable the second one. Unless they counted on the blast from the first resulting in the secondary detonation of the the other bomb.
Stupid is what stupid does! Now, hope the Z man has really stepped in it this time, and the back-fire from being "stuck on stupid" costs him dearly!
The devices in use right now are fairly idiot proof. Many even have 'back up switches' for the handlers in the event that they think the bomber will have second thoughts.
Interesting that she survived. Her story makes no sense whatsoever. If they were colocated, then perhaps she was to go first, then her husband would go second and take out rescue teams and whatever crowd followed. But they shouldn't have been close enough that he could 'push her out of the ballroom'.
And wouldn't that have caused a scene in a crowded area like that? I can only imagine staning in line at the hotel's front desk, listening to them.
"Push the button! Why aren't you pushing the button?"
"Stop yelling at me, the stupid trigger doesn't work! If you're so smart, you blow yourself up and show me how its done, big man!"
"Maybe I will! Get out of here, I don't want you jinxing me."
"Stop pushing me, you jerk! I want to watch you blow up. I bet you screw it up. You can't do anything right. You couldn't even fix the leak in the sink."
"Oh, you had to bring that up, Mrs-I-can't-fix-a-flat-tire!"
"Your cousin did most of the work, you just got in the way!"
Somewhere in that conversation, I would have left the lobby.
And apparently in the same room. Sorry, but this doesn't pass the smell test. Someone set her up.
No, if it weren't for Bush al-Zarqawi would be a peaceful goatherd.
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