Failed suicide bomb woman confesses on TV

AN Iraqi woman appeared on Jordanian television yesterday confessing to a failed bid to set off an explosives belt inside one of the three Amman hotels targeted by al-Qaida.

“My husband wore an (explosives-packed) belt and I wore another. He told me how to use it,” said Sajida Mubarak Atrous al-Rishawi, 35, who was shown on state-run TV with the disabled bomb strapped around her waist.

Looking nervous and wringing her hands, al-Rishawi described Wednesday’s attack on the Radisson SAS, one of three hotels targeted.

“My husband detonated (his bomb) and I tried to explode my belt but it wouldn’t,” she said. “People fled running and I left running with them.”

Her husband, Ali Hussein Ali al-Shamari, 35, was identified yesterday as one of three Iraqi men who bombed three Amman hotels that killed 57 people.

Her television appearance came following her arrest after a tip-off that ironically came from al-Qaida itself, Jordanian officials said.

Officials believe al-Rishawi, the sister of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s slain right-hand man in Iraq’s volatile Anbar province, may provide significant information about the network’s operations.

The quick and dramatic capture marked a blow to Jordanian-born al-Zarqawi, who is believed to be spreading his terrorist acts beyond Iraq’s borders.

Jordanian counter-terrorism officials said they think the woman could provide significant leads into al-Zarqawi’s whereabouts and his terrorist operations in Iraq.

However, officials also fear her capture may also spur al-Zarqawi and his henchmen to try to avenge the arrest with even more deadly bombings in Jordan.

Al-Zarqawi, who travelled from Afghanistan to Iraq before the US-led 2003 war, has been sentenced to death in absentia in Jordan for terror-related crimes there. He has vowed to topple the kingdom’s Hashemite rulers.

Authorities were tipped-off to al-Rishawi’s existence by an al-Qaida claim, posted on the internet, that a total of four Iraqi bombers - including a husband and wife team - had carried out the attacks.

Deputy Prime Minister Marwan Muasher said authorities had identified three male suicide bombers, including the woman’s husband, as Iraqis. He said the four drove into Jordan from Iraq on November 5, just four days before the attacks.

Al-Rishawi, is the sister of the slain militant Mubarak Atrous al-Rishawi, who was killed by US forces in the one-time terrorist stronghold of Fallujah.

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 US and other Western powers.

A top Jordanian security official said the woman was arrested this morning at an Amman “safe house” in the same 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.

Mr Muasher identified al-Rishawi’s husband as Ali Hussein Ali al-Shamari, 35. The other bombers were Rawad Jassem Mohammed Abed and Safaa Mohammed Ali - both 23.