Suicide Bombers Kill 57 at Jordan Hotels

yah boy- our actions in Iraq and our treatment of those detainees
sure are making us safer in the world... NOT!

Suicide Bombers Kill 57 at Jordan Hotels
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051109/ap_on_re_mi_ea/jordan_explosion

Suicide bombers carried out nearly simultaneous attacks on three U.S.-
based hotels in the Jordanian capital Wednesday night, killing at
least 57 people and wounding more than 300 in what appeared to be an
al-Qaida assault on an Arab kingdom with close ties to the United
States and a common border with Iraq.

The explosions hit the Grand Hyatt, Radisson SAS and Days Inn hotels
just before 9 p.m. One of the blasts took place inside a wedding hall
where 300 guests were celebrating. Black smoke rose into the night,
and wounded victims stumbled from the hotels.

"We thought it was fireworks for the wedding but I saw people falling
to the ground," said Ahmed, a wedding guest at the five-star Radisson
who did not give his surname. "I saw blood. There were people killed.
It was ugly."

A State Department official said there was no information on any
American casualties. The White House said the United States was
prepared to offer help in the investigation.

A U.S. counterterrorism official, who spoke on condition of
anonymity, said the strong suspicion is that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi,
the Jordanian-born leader of the terror group al-Qaida in Iraq, was
involved because of his known animosity for Jordan and the fact that
it was a suicide attack, one of his hallmarks.

In February, U.S. intelligence indicated that Osama bin Laden was in
contact with al-Zarqawi, enlisting him to conduct attacks outside of
Iraq, noted another U.S. counterterrorism official, who also spoke on
condition of anonymity. Jordan has arrested scores of Islamic
militants for plotting to carry out attacks and has also sentenced
many militants to death in absentia, including al-Zarqawi.

Its capital, Amman, has become a base for Westerners who fly in and
out of Iraq for work. The city's main luxury hotels downtown are
often full of American and British officials and contractors enjoying
the relative quiet of the city.

"Obviously this is something Jordan is not used to," Jordan's deputy
prime minister, Marwan Muasher, told CNN. "We have been lucky so far
in avoiding those incidents." He said most of the casualties appeared
to be Jordanians.

"Finally, the terrorists succeeded in breaking the security in
Jordan," Ayman al-Safadi, editor of Jordan's Al-Ghad newspaper, told
Al-Arabiya satellite network.

The first blast was reported at about 8:50 p.m. at the five-star
Grand Hyatt. The explosion took place in the lobby, an American
businessman said, and shattered its stone entrance.

An Associated Press reporter counted seven bodies being taken away
and many more wounded being carried out on stretchers. Prime Minister
Adnan Badran later arrived at the scene.

A few minutes later and a short distance away, police reported the
explosion at the wedding hall inside the Radisson, with at least five
killed and at least 20 wounded.

The Radisson is popular with American and Israeli tourists and was a
target of several foiled al-Qaida plots, including a conspiracy to
attack U.S. and Israeli tourists during the kingdom's millennium
celebrations. Israel's ambassador to Jordan, Yaakov Hadas, told
Israel TV from Amman there were no reports of Israeli casualties.

The third explosion, at the Days Inn, happened after a car packed
with explosives approached the hotel, Muasher said. He said the car
could not cross a protective barrier so it detonated outside. As a
result, the casualties at the Days Inn were not so extensive as at
the other hotels, he said.

Muasher reported 57 killed and at least 300 wounded in the three
bombings, with the worst damage was at the Radisson because the
suicide bomber got inside the wedding party of Jordanians.

In addition to housing Westerners, Amman's hotels also have become a
gathering spot for affluent Iraqis who have fled their country's
violence. Their presence