Amman, Jordan – An Iraqi woman appeared on Jordanian state television Sunday and confessed to being the fourth member of an al-Qaeda suicide- bomber team that attacked three hotels here last week, killing 57 people.
The woman, wearing a white head scarf and a dark denim dress, calmly identified herself as Sajida Mubarak Atrous al-Rishawi, a 35-year-old native of the Iraqi insurgent stronghold city of Ramadi.
The footage showed her standing and turning to display what was described as a deactivated explosive belt wrapped around her body.
Jordanian officials said she had been captured earlier Sunday in Amman.
In a detached, matter-of-fact monotone, al-Rishawi described how she and her husband, Ali Hussein Ali al-Shamari, 35, planned to attack a crowded wedding party in the Radisson SAS hotel last Wednesday.
“We had two (explosive) belts. (Al-Shamari) wore one, and I wore one,” she said.
“He took a corner, and I took another corner” of the hotel’s banquet hall, which was crowded with wedding guests, al- Rishawi said. “I tried to detonate (the belt), but it didn’t work.”
Instead, al-Rishawi said, she watched as her husband exploded his device.
“People started running out of the hotel, and I ran with them,” she said.
Al-Rishawi, who didn’t appear to be under duress, recounted how she, al-Shamari and two other Iraqis entered Jordan on forged Iraqi passports several days before the hotel attacks.
Jordanian authorities have identified their accomplices as Rawad Jassem Mohammed Abed and Safaa Mohammed Ali, both 23, who they say carried out the nearly simultaneous suicide attacks on the Grand Hyatt and Days Inn hotels.
The three attacks shocked a nation that previously prided itself on being an oasis of safety in the Middle East.
Jordanian King Abdullah II on Sunday called for a renewed global effort to combat terrorism.
“This is a phenomenon that brings us closer together because the only way we can overcome these extremists is to be united,” he told a convention of international news agencies meeting in Amman, the Jordanian capital. “I think that this has dawned on the international community in the past several years.”
That counterterrorism effort may now find new supporters in Jordan as a consequence of last week’s attacks. Public sentiment here has been largely sympathetic to suicide bombings in Israel and Iraq, regarding both as legitimate acts of resistance against occupation.
The strong support for the Palestinian resistance is unlikely to waver in a country where as much as half the population is of Palestinian descent. But last week’s attacks on civilian targets horrified the nation and should “put an end to any shred of sympathy” for the Iraqi insurgency, said Hasan abu Nimah, a former Jordanian ambassador to the United Nations.
Former President Clinton, accompanied by his wife, Sen. Hil lary Clinton, D-N.Y., and their daughter, Chelsea, interrupted a visit to Israel to make a brief trip to Jordan at the king’s invitation.
The former president spoke Sunday while standing in the wrecked hall of the Radisson SAS hotel. He said the family wanted to express “solidarity with the people of Jordan and our support for doing whatever is necessary to fight against and defeat this kind of destructive terror that murdered children and other innocents.”
During a stop in Jerusalem on Sunday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the Amman bombings had served as a pivotal event in the Arab world.
“In the aftermath of the vicious attacks in Jordan … leaders and clerics and private citizens are now stepping forward and taking to the streets and calling this evil by its name,” Rice said. “This is a profound change.”
Jordanian Deputy Prime Minister Marwan Muasher said al- Rishawi was the sister of a senior al-Zarqawi lieutenant killed in the Iraqi city of Fallujah. He said the belt she was wearing was in fact two belts: one loaded with between 11 and 22 pounds of explosives and a second containing ball bearings designed to inflict maximum casualties.
The Associated Press and The Washington Post contributed to this report.
