Al-Qaida's al-Zarqawi suspected in deadly hotel blasts

AMMAN, Jordan — Jordan's capital has long been a prime target for al-Qaida terror strikes, both because it serves as a gateway to Iraq for U.S. workers and because terror leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi holds strong hatred for his homeland's rulers.

Until Wednesday, though, the comfortable, hilly city of white stone villas and glitzy high-rises had mostly avoided large-scale attacks, remaining a sanctuary of stability in a troubled region.

Suicide bombings at three hotels ended that, killing at least 57 people and wounding more than 100.

Suspicion immediately fell on al-Zarqawi; Deputy Prime Minister Marwan Muasher said al-Zarqawi was a "prime suspect." An Internet posting today on a Web site routinely used by operatives for al-Zarqawi's group, al-Qaida in Iraq, said the group was responsible for the bombings. The authenticity of the message could not be immediately determined.

A counterterrorism official in Washington said previously that U.S. intelligence indicated al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden had been in contact with al-Zarqawi urging him to conduct attacks outside Iraq.

Each of the blasts targeted a hotel owned by a Western chain. The first bomb killed more than 20 people in the Grand Hyatt, one of the city's largest lodgings, police at the scene said. At the Radisson SAS Hotel, also west of downtown, at least 20 died at a wedding reception in a banquet room, according to police and hospital officials.

The third blast came when a car detonated in the street outside the Days Inn, police and government officials said. Initial reports suggested suicide bombers on foot were responsible for the other two blasts, although police at the scene said a rigged device had been planted in at least one of the hotels.

A State Department official said there was no information on any American casualties.

Amman has become a base for Westerners who fly in and out of neighboring Iraq for work. Amman's main luxury hotels downtown are often full of American and British officials and contractors as well as Israeli tourists.

Despite its proximity to Iraq, Amman is widely considered one of the Middle East's safest capitals, and luxury hotels have had only minimal apparent security. Drivers could bring cars directly to the front doors of most hotels, and no metal detectors or identification checkpoints were present.

Hours after the attacks Wednesday night, however, police closed streets in front of several large hotels and employees checked room keys and waved metal-detecting wands over people entering.

"Things here had gotten very relaxed and soft. No one seemed to care about security procedures," said Jamil Nimri, a Jordanian newspaper columnist, looking at the charred wreckage of the Radisson.

Hotels have been a popular soft target for Islamist militant groups in recent years, from Indonesia to Kenya and Egypt.

Jordanian security forces have thwarted a number of potentially devastating attacks in recent years, including one involving the Radisson.

In what became known as the millennium plot, al-Zarqawi targeted several tourist sites in the city, including the Radisson, just before New Year's Eve in 1999. Authorities uncovered the scheme and al-Zarqawi fled the country.

In April 2004, Jordanian officials said they had broken up an attempted chemical attack on the capital that they said could have killed 20,000 people. Police said they foiled another planned attack against hotels and embassies in the summer of 2004.

Last August, al-Qaida in Iraq asserted that its fighters had launched Katyusha rockets that narrowly missed a U.S. warship in Jordan's Red Sea port of Aqaba. One Jordanian soldier was killed in that attack.

Other Islamic extremists also are angry with Jordan's leaders, however.

As a strong U.S. ally, the Jordanian government has arrested dozens of militants in recent years for allegedly plotting attacks in the moderate Arab kingdom.

Al-Zarqawi is most known for devastating suicide bombings in Iraq that have been staged by al-Qaida in Iraq.

He was sentenced to death in absentia by a Jordanian military court for the 2002 slaying of U.S. diplomat Laurence Foley in Amman.

"All the fingers for what happened tonight point to al-Qaida and Zarqawi," said Muhammed Arsalan, assistant to the country's parliament speaker.

Compiled from The Washington Post, The Associated Press and Reuters