Amman bombings: Arrested woman confesses on TV

A woman who was arrested in connection with the blasts in three hotels in Amman, in which 57 people were killed, has confessed that she trie...

A woman who was arrested in connection with the blasts in three hotels in Amman, in which 57 people were killed, has confessed that she tried to blow herself up along with her husband in an Amman hotel last week.

In a televised confession on Sunday, the woman, who police identified as Sajida al-Rishawi said, ‘‘We went into the hotel. He (my husband) took a corner and I took another. There was a wedding in the hotel. There were women and children. My husband executed the attack. I tried to detonate, but it failed.’’

Jordan King Abdullah II had, earlier, disclosed the arrest of the woman at ta meeting with representatives of several news agencies. ‘‘One woman has been arrested and we hope to get more leads that will allow us to reach to the bottom of the case,’’ he said.

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‘‘She was supposed to blow herself up’’ at the Radisson Sas hotel on Wednesday, Abdullah had told the news agencies.

The king had told yesterday that initial findings had shown that suicide bombers who carried out the attack of Wednesday were Iraqis. ‘‘… Our initial findings (show that the attackers) are Iraqis,’’ he had said.

Deputy prime minister Marwan Muasser had also said earlier that three ‘‘non-Jordanian men’’ of Al-Qaeda in Iraq were behind the triple blasts. in his remarks today, King Abdullah said that extremists ‘‘hide behind religion to create differences among members of various communities. Their aim is to have conflict in civilisations’’. He said the international community and overwhelming majority have to stand up against extremists and terrorism.