Tamimi is accused by U.S. officials of conspiring to use--and using--a weapon of mass destruction, and masterminding a brazen Hamas terrorist attack that killed 15 – including eight children and two Americans, one of whom was pregnant.

Despite being on the run from American authorities, Tamimi has been hiding in plain sight for years-- under the eye of one of the United States' longest and closest allies in the Middle East: Jordan.

Despite requests from Washington, the Kingdom has been publicly steadfast in its refusal to extradite Tamimi, who at just 20 years old masterminded the suicide bombing on the Sbarro pizza restaurant in Jerusalem three weeks before planes struck the U.S on Sept. 11, 2001.

The attack claimed the lives of two Americans, 15-year-old Malki Roth, and Shoshana Yehudit Greenbaum, who was five months pregnant with her first child at the time. In addition to the two murdered Americans and the unborn infant, four more U.S. nationals were among the some 122 injured. At least one of the victims remains in a vegetative state.

For Roth's parents, the fight for some semblance of justice has already been a long one – and the bumpy road stretches on.

“We are in touch with members of Congress and U.S. government officials. The situation is fluid, and there are some indications of meaningful progress,” Malki’s father, Arnold Roth, told Fox News from Jerusalem. “Our sense is that the law and enforcement parts of the U.S. government have done everything that needs to be done to set the stage. What is preventing extradition is the political will to see the Sbarro bomber brought to justice.”

Two years after the Jerusalem attack, Tamimi pled guilty in an Israeli court for her pivotal role and received 16 life sentences and an additional 250 years behind bars.

U.S. federal laws also came into play because Malki Roth, who was born in Australia, held American citizenship at the time.

In 2011, Tamimi was part of a prisoner swap in which Israel released more than 1000 Palestinian prisoners – many of whom were serving life sentences for assaults on Israelis – for the return of one Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit, who was captured by Hamas four years earlier.

“It was important to Israelis to show the importance put on that one soldier’s life, and how much we were willing to sacrifice to bring him home,” one Israeli intelligence official, who requested anonymity, told Fox News of the exchange.

Most of the Hamas operatives and sympathizers released were sent to Gaza and the West Bank. Tamimi and her husband were among a handful relocated to neighboring Jordan, under varying terms of restriction.

But seemingly no one anticipated the terrorist’s rise to public fame. Read more at FOX News