AMMAN, Jordan (AP) – A young Jordanian fighter pilot, a female al-Qaida recruit who tried to blow up a hotel ballroom in Amman and a veteran Japanese war correspondent are at the center of a life-and-death standoff with the Islamic State group.
The militants, who hold the pilot and the journalist, have purportedly threatened to kill the airman at sundown Thursday, Iraq time, if the would-be suicide bomber is not released from death row in Jordan. Here is a look at the three.
THE PRISONER
Sajida al-Rishawi has close family ties to the Iraqi branch of the al-Qaida terror network that became the forerunner of the Islamic State group. Still, she never explained why she strapped an explosives belt to her waist and, along with her husband, who also wore a bomb, walked into the luxury Radisson hotel in the Jordanian capital of Amman on Nov. 9, 2005. Her husband set off his bomb, ripping through a wedding party with 300 guests in the ballroom, but al-Rishawi’s explosives failed to go off.
The bombing was one of three near-simultaneous attacks on Amman hotels on that day and killed 60 people in Jordan’s worst ever terror attack. The Iraq branch of al-Qaida claimed responsibility.