The Jordanian authorities on Friday arrested the first suspects in connection with Wednesday's multiple suicide bombings, as the last of the victims were buried at cemeteries in and around the capital.
Jordan's deputy prime minister, Marwan Muasher, said security men had arrested 12 people, several of them Jordanians, in connection with the bombings, in which at least 57 have died.
The initial arrests follow a nationwide manhunt for those with ties to the bombings or to al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia, a group led by the Jordanian-born terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Muasher said that it seemed likely the group had organized the bombings, but that the investigation was far from over.
PHOTO: AP
Three suicide bombers tore through the lobby of the Grand Hyatt Hotel, a wedding party at the Radisson SAS Hotel down the street and the Days Inn Hotel several kilometers away on Wednesday night. More than half the victims were Jordanians; at least one was American, a spokesman with the US Embassy in Amman said. Among the dead were prominent Jordanians, many of whom were attending the wedding at the Radisson, including the fathers of both the bride and the groom.
Doctors on Friday confirmed the death of Moustapha Akkad, the Syrian-born executive producer of the Halloween series of films, from wounds inflicted by the blast. Akkad is best known in the Muslim world for producing the film The Message, which recounts the story of the birth of Islam. His daughter, Rima Akkad Monla, 34, also died in the bombings on Wednesday.
An Internet posting by a group claiming to be al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia said on Friday that four Iraqis, including a husband-and-wife team, had carried out the suicide bombings. The group's message, in its third posting in three days, said the bombers were all Iraqis who had "vowed to die, and they chose the shortest route to receive the blessings of God."
Muasher said that the bodies of three suicide bombers had been recovered from the bomb sites and were undergoing DNA analysis, and that there was no direct evidence of a fourth bomber or a woman.
Jordan's border with Iraq remained closed for the third straight day as a precautionary measure, he said, while security has been significantly tightened on all other border crossings.
As a shocked nation continued to come to terms with the horror, protests against the bombings continued for a second straight day and government-appointed imams harshly condemned the attacks in their Friday sermons.
"He who assaults innocents is a criminal and an infidel, and no matter what he claims, he is a criminal who stepped outside the bounds of humanity," said the imam of the Maktoum Mosque in Zarqa, al-Zarqawi's hometown.
More than 30 victims of the bombings were buried in cemeteries in and around Amman. At the Islamic Cemetery in Sahab, about 30 minutes east of Amman, Ashraf Daas, who was the groom in the wedding at the Radisson hotel, came for a second straight day for the burial of friends and relatives.
"We had all come to celebrate on Wednesday, and now we have to attend funerals," Daas said after both parents of his friend were buried. "This was not just an attack on us, it was an attack on all of Jordan," he added.
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