מחבלת בירדן

An Iraqi woman confessed Sunday to failing in her bid to set off an explosives belt inside one of the three Amman hotels targeted by al-Qaida in Iraq.

"My husband wore an (explosives-packed) belt and put one on me. He taught me how to use it, how to pull the (primer cord) and operate it," said Sajida Mubarak Atrous al-Rishawi, 35, who was shown on state-run TV wearing a white head scarf, black gown and what appeared to be a bomb strapped around her waist.

It was not immediately clear if the device she wore was the actual bomb that she failed to detonate inside the Radisson SAS hotel on Wednesday.

Looking nervous and wringing her hands, al-Rishawi described the events leading up to the attacks on the Radisson and the two other hotels _ the Grand Hyatt and the Days Inn _ which killed 57 people not including the bombers.

Al-Rishawi, who is from the volatile Anbar province town of Ramadi, west of Baghdad, said she entered Jordan from Iraq with her husband and two other men.

Her husband, identified as Ali Hussein Ali al-Shamari, 35, provided at least two suicide bomb belts for use in the attacks.

She did not identify the two men, but they apparently were Rawad Jassem Mohammed Abed and Safaa Mohammed Ali, both 23, identified as the other two Iraqi bombers.

"I was traveling with my husband who carried a forged passport under the name of Ali Hussein Ali and mine was Sajida Abdel Qader Latif," she said.

"We waited and a white car arrived with a driver and a passenger. We rode with them and entered Jordan (from Iraq)," she said.

Once in Amman, she said the four rented an apartment and her husband showed her how to use the bomb.

"He said it was for the attack on hotels in Jordan. We rented a car and entered the hotel on Nov. 11. My husband and I went inside and he went to one corner and I went to another.

"There was a wedding at the hotel with children, women and men inside.

"My husband detonated (his bomb) and I tried to explode my belt but it wouldn't."

"People fled running and I left running with them."

The woman was interviewed by a man speaking off camera during the three-minute excerpt of the taped confession broadcast on state-run Jordanian TV.

The segment showed her in different poses.

At one point, she was standing in front of the camera showing off what appeared to be an explosives-packed belt.

Under the device, she wore a black knee-length coat over a black gown that reached to her feet.

In another scene, she was shown sitting and responding in a steady voice to an unidentified interviewer.

The woman is the sister of the slain militant Mubarak Atrous al-Rishawi, the former right-hand man of al-Zarqawi, the head of al-Qaida in Iraq, Jordan's Deputy Prime Minister Marwan Muasher said.

Muasher said the brother was killed by U.S. forces in the one-time terrorist stronghold of Fallujah, west of Baghdad, but it was unclear when.