Ahlam Al-Tamimi, the mastermind of the Sbarro bombing in Israel in 2001, should be brought to the U.S.: “The State Department says it wants Hamas terrorists who attacked Americans extradited to the US. Except for Ahlam Tamimi, Sbarro massacre murderer.” Elder of Ziyon, December 3, 2024:
In 2017, the US Justice Department announced:
A criminal complaint was unsealed today charging Ahlam Aref Ahmad Al-Tamimi, also known as “Khalti” and “Halati,” a Jordanian national in her mid-30s, with conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction against U.S. nationals outside the U.S., resulting in death. The charge is related to the defendant’s participation in an Aug. 9, 2001, suicide bomb attack at a pizza restaurant in Jerusalem that killed 15 people, including two U.S. nationals. Four other U.S. nationals were among the approximately 122 others injured in the attack. Also unsealed today was a warrant for Al-Tamimi’s arrest and an affidavit in support of the criminal complaint and arrest warrant. The criminal charge had been under seal since July 15, 2013.
Maybe Matt Lee of the AP read my tweet, because the very next day, he asked Miller:
MATT LEE: If it is, in fact, true that you press countries to return or to extradite people indicted in U.S. courts, what about the woman in the Sbarro bombing in Israel years ago who’s been living free in Jordan now? There was long talk of her – of efforts to get her extradited, and nothing has ever come of them. So why should these Hamas guys worry if you’re just going to —
MR MILLER: Matt, I’m going to admit you’re speaking to a case that predates my tenure, that I have a limited, at best, factual understanding of it, so I shouldn’t speak to it. But when it comes to these terrorists who are members and leadership of a group who continue to hold Americans hostage, we do think it’s appropriate that they face justice.
Funny. Because this is not the first time Lee asked Miller about Tamimi. And not the first time Miller deflected the question….
The American government has been trying for almost two decades to have the arch-terrorist Ahlam al-Tamimi extradited from her sanctuary in Jordan, but Jordan has claimed that according to its Constitution, Jordanian nationals cannot be extradited. Thus, she cannot be sent to the United States, which wants her to face justice for her part in the murder of three American citizens. But Jordan is refusing to recognize its solemn obligations under that extradition treaty, relying instead on a most suspect interpretation of Jordanian law. And even without an extradition treaty, nothing would prevent Jordan from delivering her to the American authorities save that doubtful interpretation of Jordan’s Constitution. What is holding Jordan back is the fear of the popular reaction if she were to be handed over to the Americans. In Jordan she is a celebrity, a “heroine of the Palestinian resistance,” a host on her own television show. The government fears popular anger should she be turned over to the Americans.
Ahlam Al-Tamimi is an arch-terrorist who deliberately selected a suicide bomber’s target where mothers and children would be found in large numbers — hence her choice of a pizza place at lunchtime. The Jordanian government could have prevented her from being a media darling, the subject of fawning interviews, and even having her own television show; it instead could have forbidden Ahlam Al-Tamimi from engaging in any public activity as a condition of her being given refuge in the country. It could even have put her under house arrest, so that she could not appear on television, much less have her own television show. Over time people would have forgotten about her, and she could then, without any public announcement, have been quietly turned over to the Americans.
It’s too late for any of that. It’s time, instead, for the Americans to get tough with Jordan.
This should be the first order of Middle Eastern business for President Trump. He should send a message to King Abdullah that “either Jordan will deliver Ahlam Al-Tamimi to us so that she can face American justice for her part in the murder of American citizens or we will cut every bit of our aid — more than $1.1 billion dollars — to the Kingdom of Jordan that has been sheltering her.” Let the message be delivered quietly at first, but if Jordan fails to comply, then the President should make public his demand for the terrorist Al-Tamimi to be handed over, after years of waiting.
That should get King Abdullah’s attention. Trump, after all, has the disturbing habit of meaning what he says.
࿗Infidel࿘ says
Both Jordan & Egypt are now getting increasingly anti-Israel, and are no longer living to the spirit of the agreements they signed w/ Jerusalem. Jordan should be reminded that Palestinian refugees can be unleashed on it, while Egypt needs to be reminded that the Sinai has to be a demilitarized zone
࿗Infidel࿘ says
Both Jordan & Egypt are now getting increasingly anti-Israel, and are no longer living to the spirit of the agreements they signed w/ Jerusalem. Jordan should be reminded that Palestinian refugees can be unleashed on it, while Egypt needs to be reminded that the Sinai has to be a demilitarized zone
somehistory says
Another thing: Why should Jordan be given more than a billion….**every year**?…taxpayer dollars? Why do they get that much ‘aid”? What is it used for? Why do they get any “aid”?
Is it *Fema* money that should be going to Americans who have lost homes to floods, blizzards, hurricanes, tornadoes?
Perhaps someone could just whack the hideous witch, the double ugly ghoul
Hugh Fitzgerald says
Why does Jordan receive any aid money from the U.S.? It harbors, and even lionizes — see the discussion of Ahlah al-Tamimi just above — terrorists. It contributes nothing to American security. Its media, controlled by the government, is virulently anti-Israel. What does Jordan do for us? if the new administration wants to cut expenses, it might start with the foreign aid we give to such countries as Jordan that, like all Muslim countries, are hostile to America and to the rest of the non-Muslim world. Pakistan should be next on that ending-the-aid list. Then Egypt, unless it reins in its anti-Israel media, that violates the spirit of the Camp David Accords. . Und so weiter.
rick says
Jordan, as far as Israel-Palestinian problems go is the unspoken problem. That is because as 75% of the original Palestine Mandate, Jordan is Arab Palestine. Israel is Jewish Palestine. If you were to go to Jordan and say “Jordan is Palestine” you would probably be arrested immediately and face a long term sentence. To say those words is the greatest crime of all because those words are true. Jordan is the country with the highest number of Palestinians. It is a majority Palestinian nation. The political leadership is not Palestinian but Hashemite. The Hashemite tribe is not original to the land of what is now Jordan but after being thrown out by the Saud tribe in Arabia, the British gave the Hashemites the land of TransJordan thus leaving the Arabs who lived in what is now Israel without a viable future other than trying to throw out the Jews which they have been trying to do since the 1920s. Although they were offered a nation in ancestral Israel by the UN in 1948, they voted “NO” to that offer while the Jews offered a much less attractive deal voted :YES” and accepted a state. As the Arab world was mostly very opposed to a Jewish nation, the Arab population of now Israel saw war as a very successful way of ridding the area of Jews and that began the planned Arab wars of genocide against the Jewish people which as we now know were all failures.
In Jordan she is a celebrity, a “heroine of the Palestinian resistance,” The reason for this is this terrorist is a Palestinian, not a Hashemite and not a Bedouin. She represents the Palestinians of Jordan who hate Israel to this day and demonstrate in mass numbers at every anti-Israel event in Jordan.
The US should use its economic weight to force Jordan to extradite this killer. But the Royal Hashemite Family of Jordan is very assured that they will be well treated by the Americans as every other Arab nation is not friendly either to Israel or the US. The feel they have the Americans over a barrel and history shows they are correct about that relationship.
Billy Corr says
Where is the CIA these days?
The guys who were busily making a special sort of boot polish which would make Castro’s beard fall out?
Anyway, are there no criminal gangs in Jordan willing to commit an assassination in
exchange for – say – $20,000 in cash?