Sept. 9, 2004
The Associated Press
JAKARTA, Indonesia - A powerful car bomb exploded near the Australian Embassy in Jakarta on Thursday, killing eight people and wounding more than 160, witnesses and officials said.
Police immediately blamed Jemaah Islamiyah, the Southeast Asian terror network that is linked to al-Qaida. The group has been accused in several deadly bombings, including the bombing of the JW Marriott hotel in the same neighborhood last year, in which 12 people were killed.
No one inside the heavily fortified embassy was hurt, said Lyndall Sachs, a spokeswoman for the Australian foreign ministry in Canberra. The bombing flattened the mission's gate, mangled cars and motorbikes on the street and shattered scores of windows in nearby high-rise buildings.
"Initial investigations show this was a car bomb. We do not know whether anyone was in the car," police chief Gen. Dai Bachtiar said.
The health ministry said eight people had died and 161 were wounded. Three of the dead were policemen guarding the building, police said.
SIMILAR TO OTHER ATTACKS
In the past several years Indonesia has been hit by a series of deadly bombings of Western targets by militants belonging to Jemaah Islamiyah. In 2002, 202 people -- including 88 Australians -- died in an attack on two nightclubs on the tourist island of Bali.
Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri, center, walks with Australian Ambassador David Ritchie, fifth left, during her visit at the site of the explosion outside the Australian Embassy in Jakarta, Indonesia, Thursday.
Bachtiar said Thursday's bombing bore the hallmark of Jemaah Islamiyah.
"The modus operandi is very similar to other attacks, including the Bali bombings and the Marriott blast," he said. "We can conclude (the perpetrators) are the same group."
The embassy is located on Rasuna Said street, a main thoroughfare in the Kuningan district housing foreign embassies, businesses and shopping malls. Bloody corpses and severed human remains were strewn across the six-lane street.
Dazed survivors desperately tried to locate colleagues and missing family members in the minutes after the 10:15 a.m. blast.
"I can't find my family," said Suharti, who had eight relatives working at the embassy. "I am terrified. I don't know where they are," she said, clutching the arm of a reporter.
Embassy media officer Elizabeth O'Neill said the force of the bomb had shocked staff.
It was an "enormous bomb, the enormity of the crater, the police truck outside has been blown to bits, it's like the wind has been pushed out of you," O'Neill told Australia's Nine TV Network.
JAILED CLERIC DENIES INVOLVEMENT
President Megawati Sukarnoputri was in neighboring Brunei Thursday attending a royal wedding, but cut short her stay to return to Jakarta after learning about the explosion, officials said.
"We strongly condemn this action. Together we fight the war against terrorism," Foreign Minister Hassan Wirajuda told reporters at the scene of the blast.
The bombing came as authorities prepared to press charges against jailed cleric Abu Bakar Bashir, who has been accused by police of heading Jemaah Islamiyah and playing a role in the Aug. 5, 2003, bombing of the JW Marriott Hotel.
Bashir has denied any involvement in terrorism and claims that Jakarta buckled under Washington's pressure to arrest him as part of a crackdown on Islamic activists in the world's most populous Muslim nation.
Bachtiar said the bombing may have been the work of Azahari Husin, a British-trained Malaysian engineer who has eluded capture for nearly three years. Husin, one of Asia's most-wanted men and a Jemaah Islamiyah member, has been linked to numerous bombings in Indonesia, including the Bali blasts.
In recent weeks several Western embassies, including those of the United States and Australia, have warned their citizens about possible attacks by Muslim militants.
AMERICANS URGED TO STAY AWAY
On Thursday, the U.S. mission renewed the warning, urging Americans to stay away from the Kuningan district in which the blast occurred.
Indonesian security forces have arrested about 150 people over the Marriott and Bali attacks. More than 50 defendants have been sentenced so far -- including three who received the death sentence.
Thursday's bomb blast came during an Australian election campaign in which Canberra's role as a U.S. ally in the war in Iraq has been a key issue.
Prime Minister John Howard says Australia's role in last year's U.S.-led invasion of Iraq has not raised the country's profile as a potential terror target. But the opposition Labor Party, which is running neck and neck with the government in pre-election polls, disputes that.
Foreign Minister Alexander Downer was to fly to Indonesia with nine federal police Australian bomb experts and medical staff.
The attack came two days before the third anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States.
It also coincided with the Indonesian presidential campaign. Two secular nationalists -- the incumbent and her former security minister Bambang Susilo Yudhoyono -- are running for the top post in the Sept. 20 ballot.
"I ask law enforcement authorities to arrest and hand down the heaviest punishments to the perpetrators," Yudhoyono said during a visit to the site. "Don't give any space to terrorists."
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