tinyurl.com/b4rql -> www.nytimes.com/2005/11/15/international/middleeast/15jordan.html?hp&ex=1132030800&en=772615c58e36df79&ei=5094&partner=homepage
Residents of Falluja, an Iraqi city where the insurgency has been fierce, said they knew her family. Her brothers, they said, had been killed in conflicts with American-led forces.
Hotel Bombings in Amman The woman, Sajida Mubarak al-Rishawi, had every intention of detonating h er own explosives-packed belt when she walked into the Radisson SAS Hote l last Wednesday night, investigators said, but was unable to succeed be cause she had left a crucial component - what one investigator called a "key" - in the car. While a videotaped confession showing Ms Rishawi wearing the disarmed su icide belt was being broadcast around the world, details about her life, motivation and role in the attacks that killed 57 people began to emerg e in Jordan and Iraq. One investigator said Ms Rishawi had not shown an y remorse during questioning. The official, who is closely involved in the case, spoke on condition of anonymity because of the work's covert nature. There was no way to indep endently verify the account provided by Jordanian officials. The American military said Monday that it had briefly detained a man in I raq last year with the same name as one of the Jordan bombers. But the m an, Safah Muhammad Ali, was released because he was judged not to be a t hreat. On Sunday, Jordanian officials announced that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the J ordanian leader of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, was responsible for planning the bombings of the three hotels, which included the Grand Hyatt and th e Days Inn. The authorities said that they had identified three Iraqi me n who killed themselves in the attacks, including a Mr Ali, and that ea rlier in the morning they had arrested Ms Rishawi, the wife of one of t he men. Ms Rishawi gave a videotaped confession that was first broadcas t in Jordan on Sunday night. "We went into the hotel," she said during the confession. In all the years Jordanian authorities have been chasing terrorists, they said, they had never before had a case involving a woman. But investiga tors learned of her involvement shortly after the hotel attacks, when th e owner of a house in Amman phoned the authorities to say that he had re nted an apartment to three men and a woman several days before the blast s - but that they had not returned Wednesday. The security official said that soon after the attacks, many people calle d in with possible leads, and it took time to sort through all the infor mation. But the official said agents quickly found that the apartment ha d been a safe house, rented by the four bombers. And so, the official sa id, investigators knew a woman was involved even before Mr Zarqawi anno unced that two men and a married couple were responsible. Investigators were not immediately sure, however, if she was dead or alive. The only videotape investigators pulled from security cameras was from th e Grand Hyatt Hotel, but it proved useless in identifying the suicide bo mber because the images were not clear. The security offi cial said the couple did not have any children. In her confession, she s aid that she lived in Ramadi, Iraq, and that her husband "planned everyt hing." The investigator, however, said she was a willing participant. She said that they rented an apartment and that her husband had put an explosive belt on himself, then on her, and taug ht her how to use it. She said she saw a wedding in progress when she tried to detonate her bom b "My husband executed the attack," she said in the videotape. According to residents in Falluja, Ms Rishawi's family belongs to the sa me tribe as Sadoun al-Dulaimi, the Iraqi defense minister. Jordanian off icials said one of her brothers, Mubarak Atrous al-Rishawi, was a senior aide to Mr Zarqawi.
Next Page > Edward Wong contributed reporting from Baghdad, Iraq, for this article, a nd an Iraqi employee of The New York Times, whose identity was withheld for his safety, from Falluja.
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