By Taylor Luck

AMMAN - For over one-and-a-half years, Ashraf Khaled and Nadia declined wedding invitations.

The couple said they could not join in festivities without reliving the painful memories of their own wedding at the Radisson SAS, when the hotel was attacked four years ago today.

It took nearly two years since the incident, in which Khaled’s father and his wife’s parents were among the dozens left dead by a spate of hotel bombings.

The toll varies, with one official figure putting the number of fatalities at 90.

“Although now we go, I can see in my wife’s eyes a hidden tear because she misses her wedding, and because she knows hers ends in a different way,” Khaled said.

Four years on, the survivors of the November 9, 2005 bombings of the Radisson SAS, Grand Hyatt and Days Inn hotels continue with lives they say have been irreversibly changed by the events.

Ersan Nassar’s 25-year-old son Alaa, who was working as a cashier at the Grand Hyatt Amman, died in one of the suicide blasts that were claimed by then-Al Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Mussab Zarqawi.

Nassar said that although the anger is gone, he feels emptiness when he wakes up in the morning.

“I think about him every day,” he said.

Nassar, who is without health insurance and struggles to pay for his two other sons’ university tuitions, says he relies on support from the Association of Victims of Terrorist Attacks (AVTA) in Jordan, which was established with the support of Their Majesties King Abdullah and Queen Rania.

Outside of the association, however, very few can understand his loss, he said.

“All I want is to see my son. I raised him, helped provide for his education, he was supposed to have a bright future,” he said.

“But it all stops on 9/11,” he said.

Ramzi Naser has relived the moment he lost both his parents “over a million times”, through relaying the experience to friends and strangers.

He and his family were part of the wedding party at the Radisson SAS. His parents were killed in the blast.

The first time it felt real, however, was when he got married two years ago on November 14, close to the anniversary of the fateful day he lost his family.

“I couldn’t find anyone close enough to walk with me at my wedding or introduce us as a married couple. This is the one occasion when they should be there with me,” he said.

When his wife gave birth to their first son, Naser named him Ibrahim, after the grandfather he will never meet. He said he is eager to tell Ibrahim the truth when he gets older.

“I will tell my son every detail about us, tell him how his grandparents died and how to be cautious in the future,” he said.

Nowadays, when Khaled hears of bombings in Iraq, Pakistan and elsewhere, he says he relives his experience.

“We have been changed by what we have been through, but we rely on God. This is destiny and we cannot change it,” he says.

Advocacy group

Following the attacks, Khaled continued his work as a lab technician and selling medical equipment before losing his job three months ago as a consequence of the global financial crisis.

In between job searching, he now devotes his time to advocacy, spearheading the Global Survivors Network, which will be launched in a ceremony today. The international advocacy and support group, which he co-founded along with Carrie Lemack, who lost her own mother in the September 11 attack in New York, has been a form of empowerment for survivors to have their voices heard.

Naser, meanwhile, said he found relief from his colleagues at Zain and support from AVTA, of which he serves as president.

“I am a more careful person now,” he said, noting that he observes anyone exhibiting “weird behaviour” in public and is unable to relax until he knows the situation is safe.

“We are much more guarded people,” Khaled added.

Through his experience as AVTA president, Naser said although the physical wounds of survivors have healed over time, the days, months and years following the traumatic experience has been a struggle for many.

The 25-year-old Ehab Zurkia, who lost his mother, brother and sister in the bombings of the Radisson SAS, said: “No matter how many years passed, it’s impossible to forget the sadness.” He told The Jordan Times that although he immerses himself in work as a computer programmer, he still feels the pain “as if it was fresh”.

Response to Al Qaeda

Survivors said they strongly urge against any type of support or sympathy for extremist groups.

“If anyone is supporting or thinking of supporting Al Qaeda, I want them to know that if they hadn’t attacked my wedding, right now I could have my father, my father-in-law and my mother-in-law playing with my daughter,” Khaled said.

Naser said anyone sympathetic with extremist ideology should think twice about the consequences.

“These people are weak persons with no conscience. Maybe they should imagine the effect of their actions on their own family - then they will find it wrong,” he said.

Nassar said that those who carry out such attacks “distort religion”.

“Killing, intimidating and hurting innocent people is against Islam. What they did and continue to do harms Islam and the Arab world,” he stressed.

Zurkia agreed.

“We live in Muslim countries where Islam is our guide and we live under Islamic teaching that condemn killings of innocents,” he said.

“If you have grievances, you can express them through societies and political parties, you don’t try to force your ideology on others through violence,” he stressed.

Rather than statements, Khaled has a question to pose to Al Qaeda and other terror networks whose actions have killed innocent civilians across the globe.

“How can you dehumanise someone, separate them from their emotions, feelings and thoughts and turn them into a killing machine? I cannot get my mind around it,” he said, adding that he finds solace in focusing on the future and raising their two-year-old daughter, Hala.

Khaled has not told her of the events of their wedding, but said he often tells about her grandparents’ lives, professions, of happy times which seem long ago.

According to Khaled, when asked where her grandparents are now, Hala replies instinctively: “They are in heaven.”

“Sometimes this is our only source of relief,” he said.