Savages

Belt malfunction foiled would-be hotel bomber

She wore a white head scarf and a long denim dress, clothing that let her blend in with the wedding guests in the ballroom of the Radisson hotel in Amman, Jordan.

But hidden under that innocuous outfit, the Iraqi housewife sported a deadly accessory: a handmade belt crammed with TNT and ball bearings, wrapped with duct tape and red cord.

Sajida Mubarak Atrous al-Rishawi, 35, was supposed to detonate the bomb when her husband triggered his, making them the first married couple to carry out a suicide attack.

But, as she explained in a televised confession yesterday, her belt simply didn't work and so she fled the scene with hordes of innocents trying to escape the carnage.

"My husband wore a belt and put one on me," al-Rishawi said, wringing her hands nervously but speaking without emotion on state-run Jordanian TV.

"He taught me how to use it, how to pull the [primer cord] and operate it," she said.

"My husband detonated [his bomb]. I tried to explode [my belt], but it wouldn't. I left, people fled running and I left running with them." More @ New York Daily News