|
Jordan wedding joy turns to tragedy as bomber strikes
Minutes before a suicide bomber blew himself up in the grand ballroom of the luxury Radisson SAS in Amman, a joyous wedding reception was in full swing. The bride and groom were making their grand entrance surrounded by women uttering the traditional shrill calls of celebrations while the elegant guests swayed to the sounds of tambourines. The unsuspecting group failed to notice one man who managed to elude the parked police car outside the hotel, making his way into the ballroom wearing an explosives belt under his clothes. Within seconds the festive wedding turned into a massacre. "I lost my father and my father-in-law on my wedding night," the groom Ashraf Mohammad said. "The world has to know that this has nothing to do with Islam", he said. "I was in the lobby when it happened. There was panic all around me, people were running, screaming," a young man told AFP. "I ran into the ballroom and there amidst the debris the wedding cake stood miraculously in one piece. I was stunned," he said. Jordanian MP Awdeh Qawass who toured the Radisson after the attack described the scene as "horrible". "Body parts were scattered all over the ballroom," he said. Pools of blood and scattered glass covered the thick carpet. Police, ambulances and civil defence teams rushed to the Radisson just as a second blast rocked the nearby luxury Grand Hyatt hotel causing chaos among rescue teams. A short while later a third blast shook the three-star Days Inn hotel which is located near the Israeli embassy, in the Rabiyeh neighbourhood of west Amman. "I helped evacuate several people out of the Grand Hyatt hotel," adviser to King Abdullah II, Aqel Biltaji, told AFP. At least 57 people were killed and 115 others wounded in the three attacks, Deputy Prime Minister Marwan Moasher said. Amongst those dead was the daughter of Syrian film director Moustafa Akkad who was also injured in the deadly blast at the Hyatt. Aqqad, who suffered a gash across his neck and lost a lot of blood, was due to attend a wedding in the southern Red Sea resort of Aqaba on Friday with his daughter Rima, 33, sources close to him said. Masked policemen cordoned off the hotels and prevented reporters from entering the scene as dozens of ambulances raced off the dead and injured to hospitals around Amman. Hospitals were sending out calls for blood donations to cope with the wounded, which some sources said were close to 300. "Jordan and Jordanians will not be deterred by these terrorist and cowardly acts", Moasher told a press conference at the entrance of the Radisson SAS where the majority of casualties fell. Several members of the royal family inspected the scenes of the blasts including Prince Hashem, King Abdullah II's half-brother and acting regent for the monarch who is on a visit to Kazakhstan. Right before the explosions, a fuel tanker caught fire on the outskirts of Amman warranting heavy deployment of police, firefighters and rescue teams, in what was seen by security officials as a "diversionary tactic". Posted by: phil_b 2005-11-10 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=134593 |