Explosion Hits Hotel in Amman, Jordan

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9979747/

AP: Police say scores dead in Jordan blast
Smoke seen rising from Amman building; no injuries reported yet
BREAKING NEWS

Updated: 2:30 p.m. ET Nov. 9, 2005
AMMAN, Jordan - A police official in Jordan’s capital says scores of people are believed to be dead after an explosion at a hotel in Amman.

Reports conflict over whether the hotel is the Radisson or the Grand Hyatt.

Another police official says people are being evacuated from the building. He says some people are dead and many are wounded.

A police spokesman says the cause of the explosion isn’t known. But an American businessman who was at the hotel says a bomb went off in the lobby.

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L09177164.htm

The explosion shook the Radisson hotel and several wounded people were seen in the lobby, witnesses said.

The explosion ripped through a banqueting room where about 250 people were attending a wedding reception. The hotel is known to be popular with Israeli tourists.

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L09177164.htm
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The Radisson is known to be popular with Israeli tourists, but there was no confirmation of the nationality of any of the dead or wounded. Witnesses said many Western tourists were staying there.

Israel's Magen David Adom rescue service said it had offered to send medical aid to Jordan, including transport for any wishing to receive treatment in Israel.

Jordan had been spared major attacks on foreigners despite its proximity to Iraq, but the authorities had long been braced for trouble.

Al Qaeda's leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, hails from poor Zarqa just outside Amman. Amman is a major centre for the United Nations in the region.

AMMAN (Reuters) - Three suspected suicide bombers blew themselves up in three hotels in Amman on Wednesday and many people were feared dead, Jordan's official news agency, Petra, reported.

The agency, quoting a police spokesman, said the three targeted hotels were the Radisson SAS, the Grand Hyatt, and the Days Inn. The three hotels are popular with Western and Israeli tourists.

Reuters witnesses earlier reported that blasts at the Radisson and the Hyatt had killed at least five people and wounded scores more.

Reuters correspondent Suleiman al-Khalidi at the Radisson hotel said five people were killed there and more than 12 others wounded. Correspondent Luke Baker at the Hyatt hotel said at least 40 were wounded, some seriously, there.

http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2005-11-09T203422Z_01_SPI968949_RTRUKOC_0_US-SECURITY-JORDAN.xml">Bombers hit 3 Amman hotels