Jordan identifies hotel bombers

Wife of one of 3 Qaida bombers arrested after failing to detonate bomb-belt.

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
dulaimi iraqi 298 88 ap (photo credit: AP)
dulaimi iraqi 298 88 ap
(photo credit: AP)
Jordan said Sunday that three al-Qaida in Iraq bombers from Iraq carried out the Amman hotel attacks while one of their wives was arrested before blowing herself up. Deputy Prime Minister Marwan Muasher identified each of the terrorists, including the woman, who he said was also the sister of Jordanian-born Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's former righthand man in Iraq's volatile Anbar province, who was killed by US forces in Fallujah. Muasher identified the three Iraqi bombers as Ali Hussein Ali al-Shamari, from Anbar; Rawad Jassem Mohammed Abed, 23; and Safaa Mohammed Ali, 23. Al-Shamari's wife was identified as Sajida Mubarak Atrous al-Rishawi, 35, who is also the sister the slain former militant Mubarak Atrous al-Rishawi. Muasher said the four crossed into Jordan from Iraq by car on Nov. 4, five days before the bombings, and rented a furnished apartment the middle-class Tlaa' Ali suburb in western Amman. The four left their apartment on Wednesday - the day of the attacks - took taxis to their targets, the Radisson SAS, Grand Hyatt and Days Inn hotels. Al-Shamari and his wife, both dressed as they were going to a party, entered a ballroom where a wedding reception was being held at the Radisson hotel wearing explosives belts under their clothes to "inflict the largest number of casualties," Muasher said. The would-be woman bomber failed to detonate her explosives belt after apparently struggling with its primer cord, Muasher said. Noticing the woman struggling with the bomb, Muasher said: "Her husband pushed her out of the ballroom. Once she was out he blew himself up." The bomber used the powerful explosive RDX also packed with ball bearings to kill as many people as possible, Muasher said. It was unclear where police arrested the woman, who will make a televised confession on state-run TV later Sunday. 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. On Saturday, Iraq's defense minister slammed Syria on Saturday for letting terrorists train on its soil for attacks in Iraq and warned that Arab capitals won't be saved if the "Iraqi volcano explodes." "We have more than 450 detainees who came from different Arab and Muslim countries to train in Syria and enter with their booby-trapped vehicles into Iraq to bring destruction and killings," al-Dulaimi said after meeting Jordan's prime minister in Amman.