AMMAN, 17 November 2005 — The would-be female suicide bomber who failed to detonate her explosives belt in an Amman hotel was arrested in the northeastern city of Salt where she had sought the help of relatives, not in Amman as previously announced, the prime minister said yesterday.

The announcement raises the possibility that the woman was handed over to authorities by her own sister’s in-laws, presenting a new twist in the case of Amman’s triple hotel bombings.

Sajida Mubarak Atrous Al-Rishawi, who confessed on television Sunday to planning to blow herself up at the five-star Radisson SAS Nov. 9, fled from the hotel to an apartment that she and the other three Iraqis involved in the attacks had rented in Amman’s suburbs, Prime Minister Adnan Badran said.

“But she (later) went on to Salt because one of her relatives” lived there, Badran told reporters. But Salt residents “reported her and she was seized there,” he added.

Badran could not say whether it was her relatives who turned her in. “I am not aware of that yet,” he said. “There was good cooperation from the people in that area and security forces.”

Badran’s comments were the first official confirmation that Al-Rishawi, 35, had been arrested in Salt, 27 kilometers northeast of Amman.

The triple attacks against the Radisson SAS, Grand Hyatt and Days Inn hotels, killed at least 58 people besides the three bombers, Jordan’s deadliest ever terror attack.

Al-Rishawi’s husband detonated his belt of explosives at a wedding party at the Radisson, killing at least 30 people. The woman, in her televised confession, said that the trigger on her own belt failed.

Her sister was married to a Jordanian who lived in Salt, identified as Nidal Arabiyat, who was reported killed in fighting US troops West of Baghdad in February 2004, the security official said.

Al-Rishawi, her husband and two other Iraqis belonging to Al-Qaeda in Iraq, an insurgent group led by Jordanian-born Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, arrived in the kingdom on Nov. 5 to carry out the attack.

Jordan’s King Abdallah called on the world’s Muslims to choose between the “heretics” who espouse terror and moderate Islam. He also said countries in the Middle East must teach in schools, mosques and during all public occasions that extremists do not represent Islam.

“Our populations must ask themselves: do those who blow themselves up in the middle of a feast with innocent elderly, women and children really represent our religion?” Abdullah said.

In Al-Zarqawi’s hometown, meanwhile, Muslim and Christian clergymen staged a protest in Zarqa city urging people to reject terrorism “which does not belong to any religion.”