Overview
At about 9 p.m. on November 9, 2005, three nearly simultaneous terrorist attacks were carried out in Amman, the capital city of Jordan, killing about 67 and wounding at least 200 (Jordanian News Agency, November 9). Among those killed were three senior Palestinian Authority (PA) officials: Bashir Nafi', head of PA military intelligence for the West Bank, ‘Abd ‘Alloun, director of the PA's interior ministry, and Jihad Fattouh, Palestinian commercial attaché in Egypt (Palestinian News Agency, November 10). In addition, an Israeli Arab businessman from Umm el-Fahm was killed. The three attacks took place within minutes of one another. Two of them were carried out by suicide bombers. The third was carried out either by a suicide bomber or by a car bomb (or both).
The three targets were:
The Grand Hyatt Hotel : the explosion took place in the lobby. The hotel, owned by an Iraqi businessman, is the largest in Amman and is known to be frequented by visiting Iraqis (Al-Hayat, November 9). Shortly before the explosion, an international conference dealing with Palestinian refugees ended.
The Radisson SAS Hotel : a hotel known to be frequented by American and Israeli businessmen. At the time of the explosion a wedding reception was in progress, and most of the total casualties were guests attending it.
The Days Inn Hotel : the explosion took place in the hotel's nightclub. The hotel is small and located in the Al-Rabiya quarter, as is the Israeli Embassy.
According to the first reports, the attacks at the Radisson SAS and Grand Hyatt were carried out by suicide bombers carrying powerful explosive charges on their persons . It should be noted that during the fall season hotels in Jordan are about 80% full, and that many tourists decided to vacation in Jordan this year instead of Sinai, after Al-Qaeda's attacks on the Sinai coast and Sharm el-Sheikh last year.
