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U.S. released man with same name as bomber

November 14, 2005, 12:00 PM EST


AMMAN, Jordan -- American forces last year detained and later released an Iraqi with a name that matched one of three suicide bombers who struck Amman hotels, killing 57 people, the U.S. military said Monday.

The announcement came a day after the televised confession of an Iraqi woman -- accused of being the fourth would-be suicide attacker -- set Jordanians buzzing Monday, with some expressing joy over her capture and others venting anger over her deadly plans.







Jordanian authorities said Safaa Mohammed Ali, 23, was part of the al-Qaida in Iraq squad that bombed the Grand Hyatt, Radisson SAS and Days Inn hotels on Wednesday.

In Baghdad, the U.S. command said a man by that name was detained by American forces in November 2004 during their assault on the insurgent stronghold of Fallujah. The Americans said they did not know if the man they detained was the same Safaa Mohammed Ali identified by the Jordanians as one of the bombers.

"He was detained locally at the division detention facility" but was released two weeks later because there was no "compelling evidence to continue to hold him" as a "threat to the security of Iraq," the military said.

The U.S. detention of thousands of Iraqis has been cited -- especially by members of the Sunni Arab minority that fuels the insurgency -- as a major motivation for the continuing campaign of violence.

Jordan said a Safaa Mohammed Ali, who came from the militant hotbed of Anbar Province -- which includes Fallujah -- drove with three other Iraqis into Jordan on Nov. 5. Four days later they attacked the three hotels.

Among the group of four was Sajida Mubarak Atrous al-Rishawi, who appeared on Jordanian TV late Sunday confessing that she and her husband entered the Radisson, both aiming to detonate explosives-packed belts worn under clothing during a wedding reception.

But al-Rishawi said in the televised confession, watched by millions across Jordan, the Mideast and beyond, that her belt's trigger cord failed and she fled, while her husband, Ali Hussein Ali al-Shamari, carried out the attack.

"My husband detonated (his bomb) and I tried to explode (mine) but it wouldn't," said al-Rishawi during the three-minute television segment, in which she was shown wearing the disabled belt and appearing anxious. "People fled running and I left running with them."

She gave no indication why she carried out the attack, saying only that her husband brought her to Jordan, showed her how to use the explosives belt and fitted it onto her, telling her that it would be used to attack a hotel.

Al-Qaida in Iraq said in its Internet claim that the hotels were struck because they were the centers of "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."

Her confession shot her from rural Iraqi obscurity to global notoriety overnight and drew a mixed reaction among Jordanians.

"I sat there watching and couldn't understand how she could be speaking so coldly," said Adel Fathi, 29, who lost three relatives in the Radisson attack.

"What are these people made of?" added Fathi, who closed his women's accessories shop early and joined millions of others who watched the confession.

Al-Rishawi, 35, from the Anbar provincial capital of Ramadi and the sister of al-Qaida in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's slain lieutenant in western Iraq, was arrested Sunday. Police swooped on a safe house in the Jordanian capital after they were tipped by al-Qaida in Iraq's Internet claim that she had died in the attacks.

She was made to display the clothing she wore to the party in which at least 25 people were killed.

Hers wasn't the first televised confession by terror suspects detained by Jordanian police. In April 2004, at least four Jordanian and Syrian militants linked to al-Zarqawi detailed their plot to launch chemical bomb attacks in Amman, particularly against the General Intelligence Department.

In her television appearance, al-Rishawi opened her dark fur-collared body-length overcoat to reveal two crude explosives belts -- one packed with RDX and the other ball-bearings. They were strapped to her waist front and back with a thick binding of shiny silver tape.

A red cable reached up from her back over her shoulder, apparently part of the primer mechanism. She displayed a clear plastic bag containing a hand-held plunger device, which appeared to be the actual trigger.

al-Rishawi wrote:"My husband detonated (his bomb) and I tried to explode (mine) but it wouldn't," said al-Rishawi during the three-minute television segment, in which she was shown wearing the disabled belt and appearing anxious. "People fled running and I left running with them."

Vincenti wrote:If you looked like that you would want to blow yourself up too....

Hey maybe that is the solution we have been looking for, we dont need to wipe out terrorists, maybe we jsut need to teach them the art of plastic surgery, we could make up some legend about some dune-coon who had his big old sand-nigger nose chopped down to normal proportions and didnt have to wait until he got to heaven to get his 72 virgins.....