|
Blasts caused by bombs placed in false ceiling Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2005-11-09T223804Z_01_WRI970423_RTRUKOC_0_UK-SECURITY-JORDAN.xmlhttp://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2005-11-09T223804Z_01_WRI970423_RTRUKOC_0_UK-SECURITY-JORDAN.xml
Bombs at three Jordan hotels kill at least 57
Wed Nov 9, 2005 10:38 PM GMT
By Suleiman al-Khalidi
AMMAN (Reuters) - Three suspected suicide bombers blew themselves up at three international hotels in Jordan's capital on Wednesday, killing at least 57 people and wounding more than 100 others, government officials and police said.
Reuters witnesses said explosions ripped through the Radisson SAS hotel, where a wedding party was taking place, and the Grand Hyatt hotel in Amman. A third blast hit the Days Inn hotel in the city.
Police said the blasts were caused by suspected suicide bombers. Police sources earlier told Reuters the Radisson blast had been caused by a bomb placed in a false ceiling.
"At nine this evening, there were three terrorist explosions in three hotels in Amman. There are a number of dead and wounded. They are believed to have been carried out by suicide bombers," Jordanian police spokesman Captain Bashir al-Da'jeh told Al Jazeera television.
Jordan's King Abdullah blamed a "deviant and misled group" for the attacks. "The attacks targeted and killed innocent Jordanian civilians," he said in a statement carried by Jordan's official news agency, Petra.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but counterterrorism officials pointed the finger at al Qaeda and its leader in Iraq, Jordanian Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, because of the apparently synchronised attacks -- the hallmark of the militant network.
"The number of dead is 57 and the number of injured is 115 from the three blasts," Deputy Prime Minister Marwan al-Muasher told a news conference.
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan cancelled plans to travel to Amman on Thursday. He had only chosen to visit Jordan after cancelling a trip to Tehran when Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called for Israel to be "wiped off the map".
He was joined in condemning the bombings by U.S. President George W. Bush, who offered U.S. help to investigate what he called a "vicious terrorist attack".
WEDDING PARTY
The explosion at the Radisson tore through a banqueting room where about 250 people were attending a wedding reception, witnesses said.
Reuters correspondents at the Radisson and Hyatt saw tens of people injured people.
The general manager of the nine-storey Hyatt, Otto Steenbeek, told reporters: "There was an explosion in the bar area of the hotel just before 9 p.m. There are many casualties but we don't have any numbers."
Witnesses said many Western tourists were staying at the three hotels. The Radisson is known to be popular with Israeli tourists, but there was no confirmation of the nationality of any of the dead or wounded.
Reuters television footage showed a fleet of ambulances and fire vehicles outside the hotels and workers sweeping up glass.
Police threw up roadblocks around the hotels and embassies in the city, causing traffic chaos. A day of demonstrations and mass marches were planned for Amman and other cities on Thursday to protest at the attacks.
Al Jazeera reported Jordan had closed its borders.
IRAQ LINK?
Jordan has so far been spared major attacks on foreigners despite its proximity to Iraq and popularity as a tourist destination, but the authorities had been braced for trouble.
Katyusha rockets were fired at two U.S. warships in Jordan's Red Sea port of Aqaba in August, narrowly missing their targets and instead hitting civilian buildings and the nearby Israeli port of Eilat. Jordanian security officials said they believed al Qaeda was involved in the attack.
Zarqawi hails from the poor town of Zarqa just outside Amman, which is a major regional centre for the United Nations.
In Washington, a U.S. counterterrorism official said: "Certainly there's suspicion that Zarqawi may have culpability here. But at this point it's too early to tell."
A Western security expert familiar with Jordan said Zarqawi would be a prime suspect behind the apparently coordinated suicide attacks, which bore the clear mark of al Qaeda.
Zarqawi was jailed by Jordan in 1996 but freed under amnesty by King Abdullah when he assumed the throne three years later.
"This clearly would be something very personal to him -- not just ideological, but a grudge match," Hungary-based security expert Sebestyen Gorka said.
Another U.S. counterterrorism official said the Radisson was the target of a thwarted plot in which al Qaeda planned assaults on several sites to coincide with New Year 2000 celebrations.
"Al Qaeda and those guys like to go back to places they've missed or where they weren't so successful the first time around," the official said.
(Additional reporting by Luke Baker in Amman, Mark Trevelyan in Berlin, Dan Williams in Jerusalem, David Morgan in Washington)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
© Reuters 2005.
|
|
