AMMAN, Jordan — Three explosions hit hotels in Jordan's capital Wednesday night, killing at least 67 people and wounding more than 300 others in a coordinated terrorist attack, Jordanian officials said.
Deputy Prime Minister Marwan Muasher confirmed that the downtown Amman attacks were carried out by at least three individuals: a homicide bomber who walked into a wedding at the Radisson SAS, another homicide bomber who walked into the lobby of the Grand Hyatt and a homicide car bomber who tried to drive into the Days Inn.
Jordanian King Abdullah II, who in a statement described the blasts as "criminal acts perpetrated by a misled and misleading group," cut short his official visit to Kazakhstan to return home.
The king affirmed in his statement that such terrorist operations "would not dissuade Jordan from pursuing its role in fighting terrorism and the criminal terrorist groups and those who are behind them and justify their acts" and vowed that the terrorists will be brought to justice.
A U.S. military official said so far no Americans were counted among the dead. Jordan is an important Middle East ally of the United States, and the U.S. Embassy is three miles from the blast site.
"I've just been apprised of them and we are watching the situation, but clearly this is a great tragedy," said Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. "Again it shows that people will take innocent life without any remorse, and it just shows the very difficult war that we're fighting."
The White House offered its assistance in a statement: "Jordan is a close friend of the United States, and we will offer every possible form of cooperation in investigating these attacks and assisting in efforts to bring these terrorists to justice."
One U.S. counterterrorism official confirmed that the CIA and the National Counterterrorism Center were monitoring the situation. An FBI spokesman told FOX News that if a request for help came in, U.S. agents would go to Jordan. The spokesman said the FBI has people "ready to go" if such a request comes through the State Department.
Jordan closed all its borders within hours as a manhunt began. All ministries, government departments and public institutions in Jordan were to close on Thursday, Prime Minister Adnan Badran said in a statement.
Jordan's news agency reported that dozens were expected at organized marches in Amman and elsewhere Thursday to protest the attacks.
Jordanian police said the three hotel blasts indicated the involvement of Al Qaeda, which has launched coordinated attacks on high-profile, Western targets in the past. And the date of the attack, Nov. 9, is noted in many other parts of the world as 9-11.
Muasher said Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian-born leader of terrorist group Al Qaeda in Iraq, was a top suspect.
One U.S. counterterrorism official added that Jordan is also an ally of Israel, and a Palestinian terrorist group like Hamas could be responsible. The official also said that a preliminary investigation did not show the explosives used to be very sophisticated, widening the scope of possible suspects to less-organized groups sympathetic to Al Qaeda.
Iraq Violence Spilling Over?
FOX News producers in Amman at the time of the first blast — which occurred at 8:50 p.m. local time — said the attack was aimed at a "triangle" of three hotels in the city. A FOX News producer who was inside the Grand Hyatt when it was hit reported feeling the shockwaves from the blast, and said he and everyone else in the hotel were quickly evacuated. The blast from the homicide bomber completely shattered the hotel's stone entrance.
The attack on the wedding at the Radisson appeared to have resulted in the most casualties. About 300 people were celebrating there when the bomber walked in and detonated.
The hotel is popular with American and Israeli tourists and was the target of a plot in 2000. Israel's ambassador to Jordan, Yaakov Hadas, told Israel TV from Amman there were no reports of Israeli casualties.
"We thought it was fireworks for the wedding but I saw people falling to the ground," said Ahmed, a wedding guest who did not give his surname. "I saw blood. There were people killed. It was ugly."
The fewest casualties may have occurred at the Days Inn, where the homicide bomber was unable to crack the concrete security barriers surrounding the hotel before detonating.
Downtown Amman is frequented by wealthy Jordanians and international travelers, including diplomats, military personnel and other high-ranking officials. A constitutional monarchy, Jordan is seen as one of the most secure and open countries in the volatile Middle East.
Jordan's rulers, King Abdullah II and Queen Rania, are cosmopolitan, modern and friendly to the West. Women have many rights in Jordan their neighboring counterparts do not. Both are also noted for their humanitarian work, in particular helping the impoverished of their kingdom.
But those qualities have made Jordan a target of ire among terrorists in the region.
Terrorism analyst Steve Emerson told FOX News that in the past five years, there have been at least a dozen plots against American-dominated hotels in Amman, "all of which have been successfully stopped."
But terrorists, specifically Al Qaeda, "strike the soft underbelly where American security … operations are not as extensive," Emerson said. "They find out the soft target and this is the quintessential soft target, that is, where there's very little protection."
But Jordan boasts of the best intelligence services in the world — which may mean the attacks should alarm America and its allies.
"Jordan is one of the spymasters of the Middle East. Their intelligence service is one the best," former CIA official Michael Swetnam told FOX News, noting that Jordan has been of great assistance in American efforts to scrub the world of Al Qaeda.
"But about the only part of Al Qaeda that neither they nor we have a great intelligence handle on is Zarqawi's network in Iraq," he added. "About the only people who could pull this off relatively easily would be Zarqawi's network out of Iraq, because they're just not well infiltrated by any of us."
If Zarqawi's network is indeed responsible for the attack, the United States may feel compelled to get involved.
"I think we all expected that Jordan was going to be a target very, very soon," added Global Options CEO and terrorism analyst Neil Livingstone, noting that there has been news recently of more Jordanian cooperation with the United States in the War on Terror. "This is something, it was only a matter of time, before they [Zarqawi's group] tried to destabilize the Jordanian regime."
He added: "This is probably an organized effort to undermine the Jordanian government and kill Americans in the balance. ... The United States has been putting more and more pressure on the insurgents in Iraq ... I think this is probably an effort by Al Qaeda to say 'we want to open a new front.'"
Said Swetnam: "We shouldn't lull ourselves into believing they won't come here in the near future."
But the attacks may not have the intended effect on Jordan, others observed.
"Knowing Jordan as well as I think I do in this case, I think this is going to be very counterproductive [for the terrorists] in Jordan. Sure it will scare everybody but it's not going to convince them the Usama bin Laden cause is a good one, by any means, I think it will turn them against him," Lawrence Eagleburger, the secretary of state under President George H.W. Bush, told FOX News.
Even though many residents of Jordan are Palestinian, Eagleburger said he doesn't believe Al Qaeda attacks in that country will help radicalize the population, either.
"It might do that in some other countries in the region but I think in Jordan it will decrease whatever population this [Al Qaeda] bunch had … if the attackers care at all about the impact on Jordan, I think they've made a mistake," he said.
No Stranger to Terror
Last August, three Katyusha rockets were fired in the port city of Aqaba, but missed two docked U.S. Navy vessels, their intended targets. But one Jordanian soldier was killed and another wounded in the suspected terrorist attack. Al Qaeda in Iraq claimed responsibility for that attack, as did the Abdullah Azzam Brigades.
In 2002, USAID official Lawrence Foley was gunned down in front of his home in Jordan. Five men, including Al-Zarqawi, were convicted of participation in the killing in April 2004. Al-Zarqawi was convicted in absentia, and is now Iraq's most wanted terrorist as the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq, the group that's been blamed for a rash of kidnappings, killings and attacks against U.S. forces in Iraq.
In 2000, Al-Zarqawi was convicted in absentia for planning Al Qaeda attacks against the Radisson SAS and other Western targets. U.S. officials believe al-Zarqawi and bin Laden operations chief Abu Zubaydah were chief organizers of that foiled plot.
The attack was to take place during millennium celebrations, but Jordanian authorities stopped it in late 1999. Abu Zubaydah was captured in March 2002 in Faisalabad, Pakistan, in a raid by the CIA, FBI and Pakistani authorities.
In July, prosecutors indicted five Jordanians in an alleged conspiracy to attack intelligence agents, tourists and hotels in Amman. Al Zarqawi has not been linked to the alleged plot.
Livingstone said it shouldn't take long for investigators to conclude Al Qaeda or some indigenous offshoot of the terror network, is to blame for Wednesday's attacks. Noting that every explosive has a signature fingerprint, he said investigators will also compare the bomb remains found in the Amman attacks to those used in previous bombings, as well as study the surveillance tapes from the hotels to track down the bombers.
"This is not going to be, I think, a very difficult investigation, I think we're going to have answers soon," Livingstone said.
U.S. officials said a letter dated July 9 to Zarqawi from Al Qaeda deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, acquired during American operations in Iraq, recommends a four-stage expansion of the war in Iraq that would take the fighting to neighboring Muslim countries.
• Raw Data: Text of Zawahiri Letter (pdf)
"It has always been my belief that the victory of Islam will never take place until a Muslim state is established ... in the heart of the Islamic world," al-Zawahiri wrote in the letter, which an Al Qaeda-related Web site has claimed is a fake.
The letter laid out his long-term plan: the expulsion of American troops from Iraq, the establishment an Islamic authority and the expansion of the war to Iraq's secular neighbors, including Lebanon, Jordan and Syria.
The last major terror attack blamed on Islamic militants was the July 7 bombings of the London transit system that killed 56 people, including four bombers. The most recent major attack concretely linked to Al Qaeda was the Madrid subway bombings that killed 191 people on March 11, 2004.
_________________ No matter how dark the storm gets overhead They say someone's watching from the calm at the edge What about us when we're down here in it? We gotta watch our backs
Joined: Mon Oct 18, 2004 2:16 am Posts: 1213 Location: Greenwich CT
I almost threw my tv out the window last night watching the Fox NY news at 10. They started off with that story, but quickly said:
Today's date is 11/9, which if it sounds familiar, thats the reverse of 9/11, which was the day NY was attacked, and then they started talking about how hotels in NY were stepping up police presence. Of COURSE the NY news has to make a story about a Terrorist attack half way around the world about NEW YORK....
_________________ ~ Me fail English? That's unpossible. ~
I almost threw my tv out the window last night watching the Fox NY news at 10. They started off with that story, but quickly said:
Today's date is 11/9, which if it sounds familiar, thats the reverse of 9/11, which was the day NY was attacked, and then they started talking about how hotels in NY were stepping up police presence. Of COURSE the NY news has to make a story about a Terrorist attack half way around the world about NEW YORK....
Well, yeah. It's the NY news.
_________________
Quote:
The content of the video in this situation is irrelevant to the issue.
Joined: Sat Oct 16, 2004 10:46 pm Posts: 9617 Location: Medford, Oregon Gender: Male
I think it's some sort of lame attempt by Fox to not give in to terrorists or whatever. They are suicide bombers. They strap themselves with explosives and blow themselves up to kill other people. Timothy McVeigh is a homicide bomber. IMO it's like if people during WWII called kamikaze's "really bad pilots."
I'll also mention that the term was actually started by the Bush White House, with Fox adopting the term shortly after the WH started using it. Gee, I wonder why?
_________________ Deep below the dunes I roved Past the rows, past the rows Beside the acacias freshly in bloom I sent men to their doom
I think it's some sort of lame attempt by Fox to not give in to terrorists or whatever. They are suicide bombers. They strap themselves with explosives and blow themselves up to kill other people. Timothy McVeigh is a homicide bomber.
I partially agree with u here.
I am guessing they think that the lives of the victims are more important than the life of the bomber, so if the bomber dies while committing homicide, the media shoudn't give him/her any credence by calling it a "suicide".
Joined: Sat Oct 16, 2004 10:46 pm Posts: 9617 Location: Medford, Oregon Gender: Male
I think that these articles highlight just how big of a fuck up this was for Zarqawi. By killing many Palestinians, he has given them a taste of the brutality and indiscriminate killing of suicide bombings, and has in fact greatly hurt his cause among those he claims he does it for.
By PAUL GARWOOD, Associated Press Writer
27 minutes ago
Thousands of Jordanians rallied in the capital and other cities shouting "Burn in hell, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi!" a day after three deadly hotel bombings that killed at least 59 people. Officials suspected Iraqi involvement in the attacks, which were claimed by al-Qaida's Iraq branch.
As protesters in Jordan and elsewhere in the Arab world denounced the Jordanian-born leader of al-Qaida in Iraq, security forces snared a group of Iraqis for questioning and officials said one of the bombers spoke Iraqi-accented Arabic before he exploded his suicide belt in the Grand Hyatt Hotel.
The main demonstration in Amman lasted for more than an hour. But honking vehicles, decorated with Jordanian flags and posters of King Abdullah II, cruised Amman's streets until late in the night, as passengers chanted "Death to al-Zarqawi, the villain and the traitor!" and anti-terrorism slogans.
About 50 people, including Jordanian children holding tiny flags, placed candles on a makeshift sand memorial in the driveway of the Hyatt.
King Abdullah II, a strong U.S. ally, vowed in a nationally televised address to "pursue those criminals and those behind them, and we will get to them wherever they are."
Two Americans were killed and four wounded in the bombings Wednesday evening at the Hyatt, the Radisson SAS and the Days Inn, State Department spokesman Noel Clay said. Two of the wounded were hospitalized.
Significantly, the victims also included some two dozen Palestinians with roots in the West Bank. Among them were the West Bank's intelligence chief, Maj. Gen. Bashir Nafeh, a diplomat and a prominent banker. Many Jordanians and Palestinians have supported the Iraqi insurgency, but the hotel bombings could tip Arab sentiment against al-Zarqawi.
In the West Bank village of Silet al-Thaher, members of the Akhras family mourned 13 of their relatives killed during a wedding party at the Radisson.
"Oh my God, oh my God. Is it possible that Arabs are killing Arabs, Muslims killing Muslims? For what did they do that?" screamed 35-year-old Najah Akhras, who lost two nieces in the attack. Similar thoughts were heard over and over throughout the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Other members of the Akhras family were wounded, including two U.S. citizens who live in the Caribbean island of St. Thomas, said Nader Akhras of Arlington, Texas.
Al-Qaida in Iraq, which appears to be expanding its operations outside of Iraq, said the bombings put the United States on notice that the "backyard camp for the Crusader army is now in the range of fire of the holy warriors."
But later Thursday, in an apparent response to the protests, al-Zarqawi's group took the rare step of trying "to explain for Muslims part of the reason the holy warriors targeted these dens."
"Let all know that we have struck only after becoming confident that they are centers for launching war on Islam and supporting the Crusaders' presence in Iraq and the Arab peninsula and the presence of the Jews on the land of Palestine," al-Qaida in Iraq said in an Internet statement, the authenticity of which could not be immediately verified.
Al-Zarqawi's group has claimed responsibility for previous attacks in Jordan, including the 2002 assassination of U.S. diplomat Laurence Foley. Jordan, a moderate Arab nation, has fought a long-running battle against Islamic extremists opposed to its 1994 peace deal with Israel.
In addition to the two Americans, the dead included 33 Jordanians, many with families ties to the Palestinian West Bank; six Iraqis; two Bahrainis; at least two Chinese; one Indonesian; and one Saudi. The others had not yet been identified. Officials said the death toll of 59 — which includes the three attackers — could rise because several of the 100 or so wounded victims were seriously hurt.
Iraqi President Jalal Talabani condemned the Amman attacks and said they put Jordan on notice against harboring militants.
"Unfortunately there are still some groups in Jordan supporting terrorist criminals, describing them as the resistance, and they are deceived by their claims," Talabani said in Rome.
Two daughters of ousted leader Saddam Hussein now live in Jordan, as do many other wealthy and formerly powerful Iraqis.
"I hope that these attacks will wake up the `Jordanian street' to end their sympathy with Saddam's remnants ... who exploit the freedom in this country to have a safe shelter to plot their criminal acts against Iraqis," Iraqi government spokesman Laith Kubba said.
He also said Iraqis may have had a hand in the attacks.
"The al-Qaida organization has become as a plague that affected Iraq and is now transmitted by the same rats to other countries. A lot of Iraqis, especially former intelligence and army officers, joined this criminal cell," Kubba said.
One of the nearly simultaneous blasts tore through a banquet hall at the Radisson, where 300 guests were celebrating the wedding of the Jordanian-Palestinian couple.
"While I was shooting the pictures, all of sudden I saw a huge explosion, like the explosions we see on television, and people started screaming and pushing their way out of the hall," said wedding cameraman Osaka Rushed al-Saleh, 27. He spoke from his hospital bed, where he was recovering from facial and shoulder injuries.
President Bush said the attackers defiled Islam and the United States would help bring those responsible to justice.
"The killings should remind all of us that there is an enemy in this world that is willing to kill innocent people, willing to bomb a wedding celebration in order to advance their cause," Bush said during a meeting with Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh.
A senior Jordanian security official linked the bombings to Iraq, Jordan's war-ravaged eastern neighbor, saying the Hyatt bomber spoke with an Iraqi accent and that authorities have detained several other Iraqis.
"Indications and initial reports point to Iraqi involvement but we cannot be certain," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was unauthorized to speak to the media.
Security staff patrolling the Hyatt stopped the middle-aged terrorist as he was wandering the lobby. He spoke briefly to the guards before detonating the explosives strapped underneath his Western-style suit, the official said.
The official said authorities made a number of arrests, including Jordanians, Iraqis and other Arabs.
Al-Zarqawi is believed to have trained at least 100 Iraqi suicide bombers as a special martyrdom corps to continue his group's war inside Iraq and possibly elsewhere in the Middle East.
While Jordanian security authorities have extensive networks tracking local militants, keeping tabs on Iraqis is believed to be much harder, particularly because nearly 1 million Iraqis have taken refuge in the country.
Officials from around the world sent condolences to Jordan and its ruler, Abdullah, who said his nation was targeted because it was committed to "fighting the terrorists who are killing innocents in the name of Islam."
Within hours of the attacks on the loosely guarded hotels, where there were no metal detectors at the entrances, security was intensified throughout the capital. Armed police patrolled outside hotels, set up checkpoints and randomly stopped vehicles to check them. For more than 12 hours, Jordanian authorities locked down their country's borders to prevent culprits possibly slipping out.
"We will bring them out from their holes and bring them to justice," Abdullah said.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Al-Qaida in Iraq Explains Jordan Bombings
Thu Nov 10, 4:19 PM ET
In an apparent response to Jordanians who took to the streets to call for its leader to "burn in hell," al-Qaida in Iraq took the rare step Thursday of trying to justify the triple suicide bombings that killed 56 people, mostly Arabs.
Earlier Thursday, the group posted a Web statement claiming responsibility for Wednesday's attacks. Then a second al-Qaida statement appeared on the Internet "to explain for Muslims part of the reason holy warriors targeted these dens." That statement appeared after Arab-wide expressions of outrage.
"Let all know that we have struck only after becoming confident that they are centers for launching war on Islam and support the crusaders' presence in Iraq and the Arab peninsula and the presence of the Jews on the land of Palestine," the group said.
The statement said the hotels that were hit were "favorite places for the work of the intelligence organs, especially those of the Americans, the Israelis and some western European countries" for what the group called "invisible battles in the so-called war on terrorism."
The statement also said the hotels, the Grand Hyatt, the Radisson SAS and the Days Inn, were used by NATO as a rear base "from which the convoys of the crusaders and the renegades head back and forth to the land of Iraq where Muslims are killed and their blood is shed."
Striking a moral tone, the al-Qaida manifesto said the hotels were a "secure place for the filthy Israeli and Western tourists to spread corruption and adultery at the expense and suffering of the Muslims in these countries."
Warning that Wednesday's attacks would pale by comparison, the statement promised "catastrophic" assaults in the future.
"Let everyone know that we will never hesitate in targeting these places wherever they are... . By God, we have never noticed them caring when they shed the blood of Muslims and rape the honor of the decent women," the statement said.
The hotels, frequented by Israelis and Americans among other foreign guests, have long been on al-Qaida's hit list.
The statements' authenticity could not be independently verified, but they appeared on an Islamic Web site that is a clearinghouse for statements by militant groups.
_________________ Deep below the dunes I roved Past the rows, past the rows Beside the acacias freshly in bloom I sent men to their doom
Joined: Sat Oct 16, 2004 10:53 pm Posts: 20537 Location: The City Of Trees
Serjical Strike wrote:
I think it's some sort of lame attempt by Fox to not give in to terrorists or whatever. They are suicide bombers. They strap themselves with explosives and blow themselves up to kill other people. Timothy McVeigh is a homicide bomber. IMO it's like if people during WWII called kamikaze's "really bad pilots."
I'll also mention that the term was actually started by the Bush White House, with Fox adopting the term shortly after the WH started using it. Gee, I wonder why?
Interesting take. I don't really see that big of a difference other than a simple misuse of the word: the nagain, I'm always skeptical of these subliminal things. I could have sworn I've heard that term outside of Fox though (and Fox using suicide bombers as well)--I'll keep my ears peeled.
What DOES annoy me about Fox is their insistence on spelling Osama Bin Laden "Usama". They're the only one that does it.
I think that these articles highlight just how big of a fuck up this was for Zarqawi. By killing many Palestinians, he has given them a taste of the brutality and indiscriminate killing of suicide bombings........
It must suck to get a taste of your own medicine. Hopefully more and more "average" muslims will wake up this "I do it for Palestine" bullshit that these killers keep shouting.
I don't mean to sound overly mean, I feel bad for anyone who has to suffer at the hands of these subhumans.
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