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Militant Islam Monitor > Articles > Iraqi bomber's wife arrested after failed detonation-sister of Al Zarqawi aid - Jordanian soldiers helped in attacks-bombers came from Syria

Iraqi bomber's wife arrested after failed detonation-sister of Al Zarqawi aid - Jordanian soldiers helped in attacks-bombers came from Syria

Bombers came from Syria says Jordanian king -calls bombings 'an attack on Islam'
November 13, 2005

Jordan's deputy premier, Marwan Muasher, displays Sunday, Nov. 13, 2005, pictures showing explosive devices which were on a woman who accompanied a suicide bomber to one of the targeted Amman hotels and failed to detonate last Wednesday. Muasher identified each of the militants, including the arrested woman, who he said was also the sister of Jordanian-born Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's former right hand man in Iraq's volatile Anbar province, who was killed by U.S. forces in Fallujah. (AP Photo/Nader Daoud)

MIM: The Arab street is suddenly very angry with the suicide bombings in Jordan, perhaps because they were directed against wealthy Arabs, in a 'Westernised' country, and not those whom they perceive as backwards aiding the Americans in some underdeveloped backwater.It is also worth noting that Jordan was one of the few Arab countries who supported Saddam Hussein during the Gulf War in 1990, casting their lot with the Iraqis. The attacks emanating out of Iraq by Al Qaeda which is perceived to aiding Saddam supporters, must also be a reason that Jordan is furious at how their pro Iraqi/Saddam stance was rewarded. Another unexpected development is the sudden Jordanian solitcitude being shown the mostly 'Palestinain' victims of the bombings. Jordan has a reputation of despising the 'Palestinians' and refusing to grant them any kind of rights, and education, keepingthem for decades in squalid camps, for fear they will remain in the country as a destabilising fifth columnist threat to the regime.

Even more ironic are the news reports claiming that terrorist groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad are distancing themselves from Al Zarqawi, citing him as a 'liability' due to his killing of Muslims. It has also been discovered that Jordanian soldiers have been 'seduced' by Al Qaeda, and ten members of the Jordanian army have been arrested in connection with the attacks on the three hotels in Amman.

In all the years of bombings against Israel, any Arab condemnation of suicide bombings was only because of the bad PR ie "damage to the Arab cause". Now. a sister of the woman whose wedding was disrupted has come out and proclaimed "She would shoot the killers herself". A sentiment which also shows the mentality difference between Arabs and Jews, (ie the acceptability of exacting bloody vengence). MIM cannot recall one similiar statement by any Israeli victim or victim's relative vowing to take revenge during all the past years of suicide attacks.

What is also worth noting is that a majority of the Arabs killed were self designated 'Palestinians' some of whom had key positions in the PA . One Syrian born movie producer who had lived in the US was killed along with his daughter - had made Islamist pronouncements and anti Western movies. He had been planning a new movie about Saladin - the Muslim conquerer hero and had made a film glorifying the Libyan uprising against the French. When he won an award, the millionaire Hollywood producer who had lived for years in the US, credited 'his homeland Syria' for the accolade. Even more revealing of the producer's Islamist bent is his refusal to acknowlege the Muslim role in terrorism. as cited by Dr. Daniel Pipes in a section on his website called "Caught My Eye":

"...Mustapha Akkad, a Syrian-born Hollywood producer, complained in 1998: "in Hollywood, Muslims are only terrorists" (Quoted in Laurie Goodstein, "Hollywood Now Plays Cowboys and Arabs," The New York Times, November 1, 1998). Today, at a hotel in Amman, Jordan, he and his daughter Rina, 33, were killed by Muslim terrorists..." (November 9, 2005) http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/235

One cannot help suspecting that the reason for Bruce Willis's sudden interest in helping the war on terror and his 1 million dollar reward for the capture of Bin Laden or Al Zarkawi was sparked by Akkad's death in the suicide bombing and that Hollywood lost 'one of their own'. This would be a shameful commentary on the deafening silence of the Hollywood community after the ritual killing of Dutch film maker Theo Van Gogh, and the murder of hundreds of others via suicide bombings. As can be expected the anti American Akkad is receiving accolades in the American press who are simply ignoring his anti Western pro Islamist oeuvre.

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Bombers wife arrested in Jordan

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4432964.stm

Police have arrested a woman suspected of having wanted to blow herself up in a series of suicide bombings in Jordan, King Abdullah has said.

Police say the Iraqi woman is the wife of one of three Iraqi male suicide bombers who attacked three hotels in Amman on Wednesday, killing 57 people.

Deputy Prime Minister Marwan Muasher said she was also the sister of a key aide to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

Zarqawi's al-Qaeda in Iraq group has claimed responsibility for the attacks.

The three Iraqi bombers, who died in the attacks, were identified as Ali Hussein Ali al-Shamari, from Anbar province, Rawad Jassem Mohammed Abed, 23, and Safaa Mohammed Ali, 23.

The woman was identified as Sajida Mubarak Atrous al-Rishawi, 35, and she was married to al-Shamari.

Speaking at a press conference, Mr Muasher showed reporters photographs of a suicide bomb belt packed with ball bearings that she was said to have been wearing at the time of the attacks.

He said she would make a statement on Jordanian television later in the day.

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http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-1869574,00.html

Jordanian soldiers seduced by Al-Qaeda ‘aided' suicide attacks Marie Colvin and Uzi Mahnaimi Amman

A NATIONWIDE hunt for the accomplices of suicide bombers who blew up three hotels in Amman, killing 57 people, has led to the arrest of at least 10 members of the Jordanian armed forces, triggering worries that Al-Qaeda has infiltrated the Arab army most closely allied to the West. As hotel workers mopped blood stains at the five-star hotels targeted by the bombers — believed to have been sent by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq — Jordanian security forces said they had arrested 120 people, mainly Iraqis and Jordanians. Security sources said they believed the bombers were Iraqi, but that they had received help from Jordanian soldiers who had been seduced by radical preachers secretly aligned with Zarqawi. "It is true that Amman is swarming with Iraqis and Iraqis don't need a visa to enter Jordan," a Jordanian security source said. "But we suspect a triple suicide attack of such magnitude had to have been assisted by inside information." Amman is home to about 500,000 Iraqis, ranging from refugees from the regime of Saddam Hussein who never went back to wealthy businessmen who find it a safer place to work than Baghdad. Iraqis working for Zarqawi, a Jordanian national who has a $25m American bounty on his head, are well financed and find it easy to fit in. The Jordanians' fear that Al-Qaeda might have infiltrated the armed forces was raised for the first time in August, when a missile was fired from the shore at an American warship in the Red Sea port of Aqaba. "They are inside," a security source said. "It remains to be seen how many they are and how dangerous." Al-Qaeda in Iraq appeared unusually anxious to justify the attacks, issuing on Friday the third statement since the bombs exploded at the Grand Hyatt, Radisson SAS and Days Inn hotels. Earlier statements justified the attacks by saying the hotels were "sewers" for Israeli spies and westerners. The latest praised the bombers as "Iraqis . . . (who) vowed to die and chose the shortest route to receive the blessings of God". It said there were four bombers, including a wife who "chose to accompany her husband to martyrdom". Yesterday, however, Jordanian sources insisted there had been three male suicide bombers and no women. The Al-Qaeda messages appeared to be an appeal for Arab sympathy. Iraqis are seen in the Middle East as heroic resisters of the American "occupation forces". As a Jordanian national, Zarqawi would well know the pulse of Jordan. He was a petty thief jailed for 15 years, but released by King Abdullah in a traditional amnesty given when the king ascended the throne. Zarqawi left Jordan for Afghanistan but had so little respect for Osama Bin Laden, the Al-Qaeda leader, that he set up his own training camps there. Zarqawi wanted to attack Israel and targets allied to the Jewish homeland, while Bin Laden was focusing on western targets. Only recently did Zarqawi join forces with Bin Laden. If it was Zarqawi's idea to try to elicit sympathy for his attacks, it appeared to have failed. Thousands of Jordanians have denounced him as a "traitor". Analysts could not remember an incident that had caused such anger and revulsion to be voiced across the Middle East, largely because one of the bombers blew himself up at a wedding reception of 300 guests. Abdel Bari Atwan, editor of Al Quds Al Arabi, the independent Arabic newspaper, called Zarqawi's attacks in Amman a "fatal blow to his popularity". Bruce Willis, the American film star, has offered $1m to any civilian who turns in Zarqawi or Bin Laden.

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http://www.dawn.com/2005/11/13/top8.htm

Abdullah says attackers came from Syria

AMMAN, Nov 12: Jordan's King Abdullah said on Saturday logic dictated that the suicide bombers who killed dozens at luxury Amman hotels this week must have come from Iraq or Syria and called the act a ‘fight inside Islam'.

Al Qaeda in Iraq, led by Jordanian-born Abu Musab Al Zarqawi, has claimed responsibility for the attack, which killed the bombers and 54 other people at three hotels used by foreign contractors and diplomats working out of Iraq.

King Abdullah responded ‘yes, it's a possibility' when he was asked in a CNN interview whether the bombers could have come from Syria, but went on to speculate how they might have entered his country.

"There are only two logical places they could come across either the Iraqi or Syrian borders," King Abdullah told CNN during an interview.

Syria is already under pressure from the United States, which accuses Damascus of allowing militants to cross over its borders into Iraq to fight US-led and Iraqi forces.

In one of the worst attacks in Jordan's modern history, bombers wearing explosives strapped to their belts killed mostly Jordanians attending wedding parties at Grand Hyatt, Radisson and Days Inn hotels.

Al Qaeda in Iraq said four Iraqis — including a husband and a wife — wearing suicide belts carried out Wednesday's attacks.

But Deputy Prime Minister Marwan al Muasher told a news conference on Saturday that the attackers were three ‘non-Jordanian males' and shot down speculation that a woman among the bodies had been identified as one of the bombers. He said the bombers died in the blasts.

King Abdullah, a close US ally whose support for the invasion of Iraq angered many Jordanians, deplored the near-simultaneous blasts as an attack on innocents.

"If this was a fight against Jordanian policy, why go into a hotel and kill innocent women and children? This is a strike against the people of Jordan, and not the policies of Jordan."

Mr Muasher, who said an official investigation confirmed Al Qaeda was behind the blasts, declined to comment on the bombers' nationalities, but a security source said the suicide bombers were Iraqis.

Jordan, one of two Arab nations to have peace treaties with Israel, had previously been spared attacks that have hit other countries in the region.

Three Americans were killed in the explosions.

BOMBINGS SPARK OUTRAGE: The bombings sparked outrage in the country of five million people, with thousands of Jordanians — from the capital Amman to the birthplace of Zarqawi in the bleak industrial town of Zarqa — taking part in protests to denounce Zarqawi and rally behind the king.

Police have rounded up scores of people in a nationwide hunt, including underground cells, and were searching homes of Iraqi workers in poorer parts of the capital.

Earlier, King Abdullah told state news agency Petra: "It's clear that the perpetrators of the operations were three suicide bombers wearing explosive vests with metal beads to inflict maximum number of dead and injuries."

Suspicion about the attackers quickly fell on Iraqi guerillas.

In August, Zarqawi's group claimed responsibility for a failed rocket attack on US Navy ships in the Jordanian port of Aqaba. Zarqawi was jailed in Jordan for 15 years in 1996, but freed three years later under an amnesty.—Reuters

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Bomber's wife confesses: reports

An Iraqi woman has apparently confessed on TV in Jordan to participating in the suicide bomb attacks that killed dozens of people at U.S.-owned hotels in Amman last week.

According to media reports, she said on Jordanian television that her husband had taught her use the explosives belt.

Jordan's deputy premier, Marwan Muasher, holds photos of explosive devices he said were on Sajida al-Rishawi. (AP photo)

At a news conference Sunday, Jordan's deputy prime minister, Marwan Muasher, said the 35-year-old Iraqi woman, Sajida Mubarak Atrous al-Rishawi, would have been the fourth bomber, but her explosives didn't go off.

"She pulled the detonator, but it didn't explode. Then her husband pushed her out of the [Radisson's] ballroom," Muasher said. "Once she was out, he blew himself up."

Al-Rishawi is also tied to the group that has claimed responsibility for the attacks, al-Qaeda in Iraq, led by Jordanian-born Abu Musab Zarqawi. Muasher said she is the sister of al-Zarqawi's former deputy, who was killed by U.S. forces in Iraq.

• FROM NOV. 11, 2005: Iraqis involved in Amman blasts: al-Qaeda

• PHOTO GALLERY: Amman bombings

• FROM NOV. 10, 2005: Jordanians rally to denounce hotel blasts

Muasher said the husband and wife were dressed as though they were going to a party as they entered the ballroom at the Radisson where a wedding reception was being held. The pair wore explosives belts under their clothes, he said.

The three Iraqi bombers who died were identified as the woman's husband, Ali Hussein Ali al-Shamari, from Anbar province; Rawad Jassem Mohammed Abed, 23; and Safaa Mohammed Ali, 23.

The Nov. 9 bombings at the Radisson, Grand Hyatt and Days Inn hotels killed 57 people and injured more than 100 others.

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