A husband and wife team blew themselves up at one of the Jordanian hotels attacked on Wednesday, al-Qaeda said on Friday. In its third statement posted on the internet, al-Qaeda in Iraq said that it had sent four Iraqis to Jordan to launch suicide attacks, including the wife of one of the bombers.
Jordanian police believe they have found the bodies of three male bombers but not a female. It is possible that the woman was not carrying a bomb and her corpse is one of the unidentified bodies at the Radisson hotel. The Grand Hyatt and Days Inn hotels were also targeted in the attacks, which killed 57 and injured 93.
The announcement came as Jordanian police arrested 120 Jordanians and Iraqis for questioning and thousands of Jordanians protested against the bombings after Friday prayers.
A police official said: ”Scores have been rounded up in different parts of the country since the attacks. We don’t know if any of them were involved in the attacks or assisted the suicide bombers. Many may simply be innocent.”
According to the al-Qaeda statement, the bombers ”comprised three men and a woman who decided to accompany her husband on the path to martyrdom. It was agreed to use suicide belts for precision and to cause maximum damage.
”The attackers managed to enter the targets bypassing all the security measures that the agent of the British, the treacherous [King] Abdullah, has always boasted about. All of these are Iraqis from the land between the two rivers [Tigris and Euphrates]. They vowed to die and they chose the shortest route to receive the blessings of God.”
The group, based in Iraq, also said it is close to launching an attack on Israel. It said that after this attack in the heart of Jordan, it will soon be able to reach Jewish targets in neighbouring Israel.
”Let the Jews be certain that their ‘security wall’ east of the Jordan River is now within our reach and it won’t be long before the strikes of the mujahedin reach them too,” the statement said.
Marwan Muasher, the Jordanian Deputy Prime Minister, said he could not confirm the claims made by al-Qaeda but believed it was the most likely suspect.
”Al-Qaeda is still the prime suspect and the attacks have been carried out according to a pattern that suggests that they are the prime suspect,” he said.
Kofi Annan, the United Nations Secretary General, met Jordan’s King Abdullah II and other ministers to condemn the attacks and try to build greater cooperation in the Middle East to combat terrorism.
”No ideology, no course, can justify the vicious killing of innocent civilians,” he said.
The death toll from the attacks rose to 57 on Friday when the Syrian-American filmmaker Mustapha Akkad (75) died of a heart attack and the wounds he sustained at the Hyatt hotel.
Akkad is best known for producing the series of Halloween horror movies. He was standing with his 34-year-old daughter, Rima Akkad Monla, who was killed instantly. — Guardian Unlimited Â