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Jordan Releases Details on Would-Be Bomber
The would-be suicide bomber in the Jordan hotel attacks wasn't arrested in Amman, as officials previously said, but in the northeastern city of Salt, where she sought help from "relatives," the prime minister said Wednesday. Prime Minister Adnan Badran said that after the failed detonation, Sajida Mubarak al-Rishawi fled to a furnished apartment that she and the other three Iraqis involved in the suicide attacks had rented in Amman's suburbs.

"She (later) went on to Salt because one of her relatives" lived there, Badran told reporters. While in Salt, "they reported about her and she was seized there," he added. He could not say whether it was her relatives who reported her to authorities
"I can say no more"
Al-Rishawi confessed on television Sunday to planning to blow herself up in one of the three Amman hotels struck in last week's attacks in the Jordanian capital that killed 61 people. Her husband detonated his belt of explosives in the Radisson SAS hotel, but al-Rishawi told viewers that her detonator failed to activate.

Police believe al-Rishawi may provide vital clues to al-Qaida in Iraq and possibly al-Zarqawi's whereabouts. But her interrogation is going slowly among an increasing sense she played only a small part in the operation. The questioning is expected to last a month and she will be tried in a Jordanian military court, where she could be charged with conspiring to carry out a deadly terrorist attack, a crime that can carry the death penalty.

Security officials say al-Rishawi's sister was married to a Jordanian who lived in Salt, 15 miles northeast of Amman. A security official has identified the Jordanian husband of al-Rishawi's sister as Nidal Arabiyat, who was reported killed in fighting U.S. troops West of Baghdad in February 2004.
Cue "Family Affair" theme music
When Nidal's father, Sheikh Mohammad Arabiyat, was asked Tuesday whether al-Rishawi had contacted the family for help, he refused to comment, telling The Associated Press: "Check this with the Intelligence Agency." Badran also reaffirmed that the security services believe no Jordanian was involved in the Nov. 9 attacks.

But Jordan's King Abdullah II said he was not so sure in an interview with Corriere della Sera published Wednesday. Asked whether any Jordanians were involved, the king told the Italian newspaper, "Maybe."
"Now we know a lot more. There might even be more people involved whom we are hunting for," he added.
Posted by: Steve 2005-11-16
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=135167