Motive Glimpsed in Jordan Attack

Relatives Say U.S. Offensive in Fallujah Radicalized Woman

By Jackie Spinner
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, November 15, 2005; Page A18

AMMAN, Jordan, Nov. 14 -- Relatives of the woman who failed in a bid to bomb a hotel in Jordan said she was radicalized by the U.S. attack on Fallujah in November 2004 to retake the Iraqi city from insurgents. They said Sajida Rishawi, 35, had watched her husband dragging bloodied insurgent fighters through their gate, burying the dead in their back yard.

Rishawi's friends and family members in Fallujah sought to explain what drove her, after seeing footage broadcast by Jordanian state-run television that showed the captured woman modeling a suicide vest that she allegedly wore as part of coordinated bombing attacks on three hotels here that killed 57 people.