Jordan releases details on would-be bomber
(AP)
Updated: 2005-11-16 22:12

The would-be Iraqi woman suicide bomber was arrested in the northeastern city of Salt, not Amman, where she sought help from some "relatives," Jordan's prime minister said Wednesday.

A mosque minaret is seen next to an apartment building used as a safe house where police arrested the would-be bomber Sajida Al-Rishawi Sunday in the city of Amman, Jordan, Tuesday, Nov. 15, 2005.J ordan introduced strict anti-terror measures Tuesday, including demanding all foreigners renting properties be reported to authorities within 48 hours, as the government steps up efforts to prevent further attacks like last week's triple hotel bombings. [AP]

The prime minister was referring to Sajida Mubarak Atrous al-Rishawi, the woman who confessed on television Sunday to planning to blow herself up in one of the three Amman hotels that were devastated in last week's attacks in the Jordanian capital that killed 61 people.

Her husband detonated his belt of explosives in the Radisson SAS hotel, but al-Rishawi told viewers that her detonator failed to activate. Previously it was reported that she was arrested in Amman.

Prime Minister Adnan Badran said that after the failed detonation, al-Rishawi fled to a furnished apartment that she and the other three Iraqis involved in the suicide attacks had rented in Amman's suburbs.

"After the action, the wife Sajida went to the rented apartment, but she (later) went on to Salt because one of her relatives" lived there, Badran told reporters.

While in Salt, "they reported about her and she was seized there," he added. He could not say whether it was her "relatives" who reported her to authorities.

"I am not aware of that yet," the prime minister said when asked about the role of her relatives in her detention. "There was good cooperation from the people in that area and security forces."

Security officials say al-Rishawi's sister was married to a Jordanian who lived in Salt, 17 miles northeast of Amman. A security official has identified the Jordanian husband of al-Rishawi's sister as Nidal Arabiyat, who was reported killed in fighting U.S. troops West of Baghdad in February 2004.

When Nidal's father, Sheikh Mohammad Arabiyat, was asked Tuesday whether al-Rishawi had contacted the family for help, he refused to comment, telling The Associated Press: "Check this with the Intelligence Agency."

Badran reaffirmed that the security services believe no Jordanian was involved in the Nov. 9 attacks.

"There's really no (Jordanian) connection whatsoever," he said. "It was done by the Iraqis, purely Iraqis and no Jordanian was involved at all."

But Jordan's King Abdullah II said he was not so sure in an interview with Corriere della Sera published Wednesday. Asked whether any Jordanians were involved, the king told the Italian newspaper "maybe."

"Now we know a lot more. There might even be more people involved whom we are hunting for," he added.

Al-Rishawi, her husband and two other Iraqis belonging to al-Qaida in Iraq, a group led by the Jordanian-born Abu-Musab al-Zarqawi, arrived in the kingdom on Nov. 5 to carry out the attack, the deadliest seen in Jordan.

In her televised confession, al-Rishawi said she accompanied her husband to a Jordanian-Palestinian wedding party at the Radisson hotel. She saw her husband detonate his belt of explosives, but the trigger primer on her belt failed, she said.