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Jordan's new measures aimed at foreigners
(AP)
Updated: 2005-11-16 01:42
Jordan's stepped up security posture follows the Nov. 9 bombings of the
Radisson SAS, Grand Hyatt and Days Inn hotels in Amman by a team of Iraqis. The
attackers included three men who blew themselves up — and killed 57 others — and
one of the men's wives, who claims her explosives-packed belt malfunctioned.
Jordanian authorities had said that the captured female bomber, Sajida
Mubarak al-Rishawi, who comes from the Iraqi city of Ramadi in the volatile
Anbar province, was the sister of a slain lieutenant of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
But two of the woman's friends told The Associated Press that three of her
brothers were killed by U.S. forces, including known al-Qaida in Iraq cell
leader Thamir al-Rishawi, who died during the April 2004 U.S. operations in
Fallujah when an air-to-ground missile hit his pickup.
Two other brothers, Ammar and Yassir, were killed in separate attacks against
U.S. troops in Ramadi, said the friends, who declined to be identified further
because fearing retribution from insurgents.
A security official, meanwhile, said lights in sections of both the Radisson
and Hyatt hotels went out just before the near simultaneous blasts in — apparent
— coordinated fashion.
A DJ at the Radisson, where a Jordanian-Palestinian wedding reception was
bombed, also recalled how the ballroom where the party was being held
mysteriously descended into darkness.
"The lights at the wedding hall went off seconds, maybe just one second,
before the blast, although there was electricity outside the room in the
corridor, the nearby lobby area and the reception," Fadi al-Kessi told AP.
"For some reason, I looked to my right in the darkness and saw what looked
liked lightening, then there was a loud boom. It felt like the explosion came
from the ceiling, then people started running out."
Separately, U.S. National Intelligence Director John Negroponte arrived in
Jordan on Tuesday for talks with the country's foreign minister, the state-run
Petra news agency reported without providing further details. The U.S. Embassy
declined to comment on Negroponte's visit.
Two forensic crime experts from Interpol also arrived in Amman to "exchange
information and expertise (with Jordanian counterparts) in the field of fighting
crime," according to Petra.
Police arrested al-Rishawi Sunday in a safe house in western Amman after the
al-Qaida in Iraq terror group, headed by Jordanian-born al-Zarqawi, issued an
Internet statement saying a woman was among the four Iraqi attackers.
Al-Rishawi revealed no motive in a televised confession for trying to bomb
the Radisson, saying only that her husband brought her to Jordan from Iraq and
fitted her with an explosives belt for use in the hotel attack.
Jordanian intelligence officials say their interrogation of al-Rishawi, which
could last for about a month before she is eventually charged, has been going
slowly.
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