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Woman bomber confesses to hotel attack
(AP)
Updated: 2005-11-15 01:23
After a second showing of the tape, a TV announcer cited security officials
as saying the woman gave no further details because "she was still suffering
from the shock of the blasts and her subsequent arrest."
Al-Rishawi was arrested Sunday morning at a "safe house" in the same Amman
suburb where her husband and the other two bombers rented a furnished apartment,
a top Jordanian security official said.
Jordanian security was tipped off to her presence by al-Qaida in Iraq's claim
of a female bomber, the official added, speaking on condition of anonymity
because he was not authorized to speak to journalists. The group apparently
assumed she was killed in the blasts.
"There were leads that more people had been involved, but it was not clear
that it was a woman and we had no idea on her nationality," the official said.
Al-Rishawi, who is from the volatile Anbar province town of Ramadi, west of
Baghdad, said on state TV that she entered Jordan from Iraq four days before the
attacks with her husband and two other men using fake passports. She said they
rode across the border in a white car with a driver and another passenger.
"My husband arranged our trip from there, I don't know," she said, adding
that they rented a furnished apartment in a middle-class suburb of western
Amman. She said bombers took taxis to the hotels.
Jordan officials confirmed the three bombers were Iraqis. Al-Rishawi did not
name the other two, but Jordanian authorities identified them as Rawad Jassem
Mohammed Abed and Safaa Mohammed Ali, both 23.
Muasher said investigations showed no Jordanians were involved, but several
local followers of al-Zarqawi have been arrested.
King Abdullah II told NBC's "Meet the Press" that "all Jordanians are
unified, in that they want the people who are responsible for these crimes to be
brought to justice."
"If we know where they are, even if it's beyond the borders of Jordan, we
will give it the best shot possible to bring these people to justice," he said.
Jordanian counterterrorism officials believe al-Rishawi could provide
significant leads into al-Zarqawi's whereabouts and his terrorist operations in
Iraq.
But the officials, insisting on anonymity because of the sensitivity of their
positions, also fear her capture may spur al-Zarqawi to avenge the arrest with
more attacks in Jordan or against Jordanian interests abroad.
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