Jordan Times
Wednesday, November 16, 2005
Amman would-be bomber
had 3 brothers killed in Iraq
By Randa Habib
Agence France-Presse
AMMAN — An Iraqi woman who dramatically confessed
on JTV to her role in the deadly multiple bombings on Amman hotels last week had
three brothers and a brother-in-law killed by US forces in Iraq, officials and
family sources said Tuesday.
Officials said the woman captured Sunday, Sajida Mubarak Atrous Al Rishawi, 35,
had provided few leads apart from her apparent motivation and that the
investigation was now focused on whether the bombers had accomplices in Jordan.
“The priority is to find out if the suicide bombers had accomplices who are
still in Jordan,” one source said.
Authorities said four suicide bombers were behind the attacks on three luxury
hotels November 9, operation that killed 57 people and sent shock waves through
one of the most stable countries in the Middle East.
Another security source said Samer Rishawi, a right-hand man of Iraq's most
wanted man Abu Mussab Al Zarqawi, was among the three brothers killed by US
forces battling insurgents in the west of the country.
Samer was a cell leader for Zarqawi, Al Qaeda front man in Iraq, for the
volatile Anbar province, the source said.
Sajida, whose explosives belt failed to detonate, had two other brothers killed
by US troops in Iraq, Ammar and Yasser, according to officials.
She has told investigators that Ammar and Yasser died in Ramadi, while Samer was
killed in the former rebel stronghold of Fallujah, the security source said.
Other sources disclosed that Sajida's sister had been married to a Jordanian
explosives expert, Nidal Mohammed Arabiyat, also killed by US forces in Iraq.
Sources close to his family told AFP that Arabiyat had gone to Afghanistan in
1999, where he became an expert in explosives, and then travelled to Iraq in
2003 where he fought alongside Zarqawi.
He married an Iraqi woman, Sajida's sister, who never came to Jordan and who
remained in Iraq after his death, they added.
Wednesday's hotel killings have been claimed by Zarqawi's group, which is also
behind much of the daily bloodshed in neighbouring Iraq.
Sajida confessed on JTV just hours after her arrest to joining a wedding party
at Radisson SAS Hotel and unsuccessfully trying to blow herself up together with
her husband.
“I took one corner and my husband took another corner. There was a wedding party
at the hotel with women, men and children. My husband carried out the operation.
I tried to detonate but it didn't go, so I left. People came running out and I
came out with them,” Sajida recalled in a calm and steady voice.
While her husband, Ali Hussein Shammari, also 35, blew himself up, accomplices
Rawad Jassem Mohammed Abed and Safa Mohammed Ali carried out similar missions at
two other hotels, the Grand Hyatt and Days Inn, officials said.
The security sources said Sajida was “in a state of shock” and had not provided
much information.
Her confession triggered mixed emotions in Jordan, with one man whose brother
was killed in the bombings describing her as a “beast.”
Investigators are trying to determine whether the explosives belts had been
smuggled into the country by the suspects or picked up in Jordan.
According to the register at the Karameh border post with Iraq and surveillance
cameras, the group entered at 5:18pm (1518 GMT) on November 5.
“There is no proof that they had the belts with them. But if they picked them up
in Jordan, they must have been brought in from Iraq at an earlier date,” one
source said.
Sajida said on television that she and her husband entered Jordan by car on
November 5 carrying fake Iraqi passports and made their way four days later to
Radisson SAS Hotel.