Two days after the bombings which killed 57, wounded nearly 100 and jolted
a country long expecting to be targeted by Islamic militants, Jordanians took
to the streets in noisy demonstrations of unity to reject terrorism.
Al-Qaeda in Iraq, headed by fugitive Jordanian Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, said in an unverified internet statement, that four Iraqis carried out the suicide bombings of the three luxury hotels.
"All the members of the group were Iraqis," claimed the internet statement.
"The group charged with planning, preparing and implementing (the attacks) was made up of three men: commanders Abu Khabib, Abu Muaz and Abu Omaira. Their fourth was the venerable sister Om Omaira," it said.
Jordan's chief forensic medicine officer said a severed head found among
the remains of victims at one hotel was not that of the female suicide bomber
as indicated earlier by a local hospital.
"It belongs to a woman who was close to the explosion," said Doctor Moumen
al-Hadidi, quoted by the official Petra news agency.
The Al-Qaeda statement threatened more attacks on Jordan.
The attacks have ignited a wave of global revulsion. UN chief Kofi Annan, on a visit to Amman, condemned the bombings and declared that "no ideology can justify the killing of innocent people."
The authorities closed a border crossing to Iraq in a bid to stop suspects
from leaving. "No one can leave Jordan for Iraq from Karameh (the only land crossing)," Deputy Prime Minister Marwan Moasher told reporters. "But all other border crossings are open."
He told a press conference that 12 people, some of them Jordanian, had been arrested and were considered suspects.
Hundreds of people of differing nationalities have been detained for questioning since the blasts but many have since been released, according to another Jordanian official.
Conversations revealed
A senior official also said security staff at two of the hotels, the Grand
Hyatt and Days Inn, told investigators they had spoken to two of the suspected
assailants just before the bombings.
"They were curious about the way they were dressed," the official told AFP.
"These short conversations are important particularly because one of them spoke with an Iraqi accent while the other had an Arab Gulf accent, which could also be Iraqi."
Services
Meanwhile Jordanians packed into mosques for Friday noon-time prayers for the dead.
King Abdullah II attended prayers at Al-Hashimiyah mosque, where the imam
denounced the perpetrators of the attacks as "ignorants" whose "actions are totally banned by Islam."
The king has vowed to track down those responsible for the carnage. He
said his country, not only a staunch US ally but also only the second Arab
nation to have made peace with Israel, would not be "blackmailed" into changing its policies.