AMMAN, Nov 10: Jordan said on Thursday it had arrested several suspects over the hotel bombings that killed 56 people in the deadliest attacks in the kingdom’s history claimed by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s Al Qaeda group.

The suicide attacks late on Wednesday targeted three hotels in the Jordanian capital that are favourite haunts of Amman’s expatriate community and Western visitors.

The strikes shattered the relative calm of one of the region’s most stable states that was previously considered a safe haven from the turmoil of neighbouring Iraq and triggered worldwide condemnation.

Among the dead were at least 12 foreigners.

“A number of suspects were arrested and a number of cars were seized in connection with the terrorist attacks,” a security source said in a statement carried by state-run Petra news agency.

The group headed by Zarqawi, a Jordanian fugitive, claimed the coordinated attacks in an Internet statement, and warned of more to come.

The hotels “were turned by the dictator of Jordan as a back garden for the enemies of (our) religion, the Jews and the Crusaders”, it said.

“The protective wall for the Jews... and the military base of the Crusader armies and the (Iraqi) government... are now in the line of fire of the mujahedeen and their raids,” it said.

Jordan’s Deputy Prime Minister Marwan Moasher told AFP that Zarqawi was “certainly the prime suspect.”

Zarqawi, who was released from a Jordanian jail in 1999 under a general amnesty but now faces a death sentence in Jordan and is wanted for a number of attack plots, is also the most wanted man in Iraq.

“We don’t know who was responsible for it at this point,” White House spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters in Washington, but “it has the hallmarks of Al-Qaeda.”

Jordan reopened its borders after sealing them after the attacks, while increased security was in force at airports and police presence stepped up outside Amman hotels.

Thousands waving Jordanian flags took to the streets of the capital and other parts of Jordan to vent their anger over the violence.

“These are evil acts carried out by cowardly people,” shouted 15-year-old Jordanian student Hossam.

A total of 56 people were killed, including 12 foreigners, and 102 wounded remain in hospital, according to a revised official toll.

Moasher said the authorities were conducting DNA tests on the bodies of 11 dead, including those of the three suicide bombers who had yet to be identified. Israel radio reported that an Israeli businessman was among the dead.

In the deadliest blast, a suicide bomber blew himself up in a ballroom at the Radisson SAS while a Jordanian wedding reception was in full swing.

The bride and groom both lost their fathers and were themselves injured. “The world has to know that this has nothing to do with Islam,” said the groom Ashraf Mohammad.

“I did not know what had happened. I was frozen. Then there was a movement of panic. People ran, others screamed,” said another witness.

Shortly afterwards, a suicide bomber also detonated his charge at the entrance of the Grand Hyatt and a suicide car bomber attacked the three-star Days Inn in the Rabiyeh neighbourhood where the Israeli embassy is located.

King Abdullah, who was visiting Kazakhstan at the time but returned home at dawn, said the blasts were “terrorist acts” and pledged that “justice will pursue the criminals”.

UN chief Kofi Annan, on a tour of the region, is to visit Jordan on Friday, the prime minister’s office said, a day after the secretary general announced he was scrapping the visit.—AFP