Husband and wife team linked to bombing

AL-QAIDA in Iraq claimed yesterday that four Iraqis carried out the suicide bombings against three Amman hotels as police arrested 120 Jordanians and Iraqis in the hunt for anyone who might have aided them.

They terrorists included a husband and wife, according to Al-Qaida.

If their involvement is confirmed, the husband and wife would be the first married couple yet known to take part in a suicide bombing, a top Israeli counter-terrorism expert said.

Thousands of Jordanians protested in Amman for a second straight day, condemning the attacks that killed 57 people, excluding the bombers, and denouncing al-Qaida in Iraq’s leader, Jordanian-born Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

“Al-Zarqawi, you are a coward. Amman will remain safe.” chanted 3,000 protesters who marched through the capital.

The toll rose to 57, including two Americans, with the death yesterday of Syrian-American filmmaker Mustapha Akkad, the producer of the Halloween horror movies.

Mr Akkad, 75, of Los Angeles, suffered serious injuries and a heart attack in the Hyatt bombing, which also killed his 34-year-old daughter Rima Akkad Monla, an American living in Beirut.

The internet claim by al-Qaida in Iraq was the third issued since the nearly simultaneous bombings on Wednesday night at the Grand Hyatt, Radisson SAS and Days Inn hotels, which were frequented by foreigners, particularly Israelis and Americans, and were long on the group’s hit list.

Authorities have not yet said with certainty that Iraqis were involved in the attack but speculation has been high that al-Zarqawi has been trying to spread his group’s influence outside Iraq. Police have only said that three suicide bombers - including one with an Iraqi accent - were behind the attacks.

“There is tremendous outrage by the Jordanian public that these people have targeted just innocent people,” King Abdullah II told CNN.

“And I can tell you that we Jordanians, we get mad and we get even and these people will be brought to justice.”

The al-Qaida statement said all the bombers “are Iraqis from the land between the two rivers”, alluding to Iraq’s ancient name Mesopotamia.

“They vowed to die and they chose the shortest route to receive the blessings of God,” it said.

It was not possible to authenticate the claim, but it appeared on a site that has included past al-Qaida statements, including Thursday’s claim of responsibility.

The statement, signed by group spokesman Abu Maysara al-Iraqi, said the four included a woman “who chose to accompany her husband to his martyrdom”.

It also threatened Israel, Jordan’s western neighbour. The statement noted that Jordan, which it described as Israel’s “buffer zone”, was now “within range” and “it will not be long before raids by the mujahedeen come” to the Jewish state itself.

It said the attackers selected the hotels after a month of surveillance and wore explosive belts “in order to achieve greater accuracy in hitting the target”.

The plot was carried out in response to “the conspiracy against the Sunnis whose blood and honour were shed by the Crusaders and the Shi’ites” and with the connivance of the Arab League, which is trying to arrange an Iraqi reconciliation conference, the statement said.