Female bomber makes confession on Jordan TV

AMMAN, Monday (Reuters) An Iraqi woman in Jordanian custody said in a televised confession she had tried to blow herself up alongside her husband in an Amman hotel last week, one of three attacks that killed more than 50 people.

"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," the woman, who police identified as Sajida al-Rishawi, said on Jordan's state-run television.

"My husband executed the attack. I tried to detonate and it failed. People started running and I ran with them," Rishawi, wearing a white headscarf, black gown and what looked like a bomb strapped to her body said during a brief recorded television appearance.

Three suicide bombers belonging to al Qaeda in Iraq killed more than 50 people at three luxury Amman hotels on Wednesday, in one of Jordan's worst attacks.

Officials said Rishawi's husband was a bomber who died in one of three simultaneous attacks at the Hyatt, Radisson and Days Inn hotels.

International human rights groups say Jordanian police extract confessions from detainees under duress, but the woman spoke calmly. At one point she was shown standing up and modelling with what looked like a bomb strapped to her body.

Officials said Rishawi is the sister of Samir Mubarak Atrous al-Rishawi, a now-dead former senior aide to Jordanian-born al Qaeda in Iraq leader, Abu Musab al Zarqawi. Al Qaeda in Iraq has claimed responsibility for the bombings. Al Qaeda in Iraq said in an Internet statement that a married couple and two other men - all Iraqis - had carried out the bombings at hotels frequented by Western security contractors who operate out of Iraq and by diplomats.

Nearly all of the suicide bombers who have carried out attacks in Iraq have been Arabs who crossed into the country from Syria, Iraq's national security adviser, Mowaffaq al-Rubaie said on Sunday.

Most of the suicide bombers were Saudi citizens, Rubaie added. U.S, British and Iraqi officials have demanded Syria do more to stem the flow of foreign fighters crossing its border into Iraq and close training camps on its soil.

"We do not have the least doubt that nine out of 10 of the suicide bombers who carry out suicide bombing operations among Iraqi citizens ... are Arabs who have crossed the border with Syria," Rubaie told journalists in Cairo.