AMMAN, Jordan — Jordanian police said today that they had rounded up 120 people, mainly Iraqis and Jordanians, in a nationwide hunt for those behind the triple Amman hotel bombings.

The death toll rose to at least 60 today with the death of Syrian-American filmmaker Mustapha Akkad, whose 34-year-old daughter was also killed in the bombings. Akkad, who was 75 and lived in Los Angeles, had suffered serious injuries and a heart attack. He was the producer of the "Halloween" horror movies.

The death toll included the three suicide bombers.

Al-Qaida in Iraq, led by Jordanian-born Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, claimed responsibility for Wednesday's suicide bombings.

Most of those detained today are Iraqis and Jordanians, a senior police official said. At least one of the bombers spoke with an Iraqi accent and suspicion increasingly fell on the insurgents fighting U.S. and Iraqi forces across Jordan's eastern border.

"Scores have been rounded up in different parts of the country since the attacks," said the official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

"They're of different nationalities, mainly Iraqis and Jordanians. The number of people interrogated now is 120."

"We don't know if any of them were involved in the attacks or assisted the suicide bombers," the official said. "Many may simply be innocent."

Investigators hunting for more clues also were piecing together the remains of the suicide bombers today.

The hunt for suspects intensified a day after thousands rallied in the capital and other cities to denounce al-Zarqawi.

Thousands of Jordanians nationwide attended weekly sermons today in hundreds of mosques, which all performed special prayers "for the absent" to commemorate the bombing victims.

Larger, more emotional outpourings of anger at Islamic extremists are expected today after a mass funeral for bombing victims.

"Burn in hell, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi!" protesters shouted Thursday.

"So many of us lost friends but what is coming through the most is the outrage and the disbelief that any group could consider these kind of acts serve larger purposes," Jordan's Queen Noor told CNN.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan flew into Amman to meet Jordan's King Abdullah II and the foreign minister.

Al-Zarqawi — sentenced to death in absentia here for terror crimes — is believed to have specially trained more than 100 Iraqi militants to carry out suicide bombing missions in Iraq and, possibly, elsewhere in the Middle East.

The three hotels targeted — Grand Hyatt, the Radisson SAS and the Days Inn — are frequented by Israelis and Americans among other foreign guests and have long been on al-Qaida's hit list.

Stung by the Arab condemnations, al-Qaida issued an Internet statement Thursday "to explain for Muslims" why they had targeted hotels in an Arab capital packed with other Muslims as well as western visitors.

More than half of those killed in the attacks were Jordanians. Six Iraqis, two Bahrainis and one Saudi Arabian were also among the dead.

"Let all know that we have struck only after becoming confident that they are centers for launching war on Islam and supporting the Crusaders' presence in Iraq and the Arab peninsula and the presence of the Jews on the land of Palestine," the purported al-Qaida in Iraq statement said.

The statement promised "catastrophic" assaults in the future, warning that Wednesday's attacks would pale by comparison.

A senior Jordanian security official linked the bombings to Iraq, saying one militant wandered around the lobby of the Grand Hyatt Hotel and spoke to people in an Iraqi accent before blowing himself up.

Two other bombers attacked almost simultaneously, targeting the nearby Days Inn and Radisson SAS hotels. The Radisson bomber detonated explosives in a ballroom during a wedding party, killing at least 16 members of one Jordanian family.