Near-Simultaneous Blasts Kill 8,
Wound 13 in Bali
BALI, Indonesia -- Bombs exploded almost simultaneously
Saturday
in two tourist areas of the Indonesian resort island of
Bali, killing at
least eight people and wounding 13 others, police and hospital
officials
said.
The victims included foreign tourists.
The blasts at Jimbaran beach and a bustling
outdoor shopping
center in downtown Kuta "were clearly the work of terrorists,"
police Maj. Gen. Ansyaad Mbai, a top Indonesian anti-terrorism
official, told The Associated Press.
A receptionist at the Graha Asih Hospital
close to Jimbaran Bay
said at least eight bodies were in the morgue, and doctors
were
treating at least 13 other people. "It's a horrible
scene," the
receptionist, Komang, said.
The bombs Saturday went off at around 7:30
p.m. at two restaurants
that were packed with foreign and Indonesian diners. I Wayan
Kresna
said he witnessed the first bomb at seafood restaurant on
Jimbaran
beach. He counted at least two dead and said many others
were
brought to a hospital. "I helped lift up the bodies,"
he told the privately
run El Shinta radio. "There was blood everywhere."
The other explosion hit the Raja restaurant
in a bustling outdoor shopping
center of Kuta, about 30 kilometers away. All floors of
the three-story
building were badly damaged in the blast. Kuta was the site
of October
2002 bomb attacks blamed on the al Qaeda-linked group Jemaah
Islamiyah
that killed 202 people.
The exact number of blasts weren't clear.
Some witnesses said they heard
at least two explosions at each location, however, it wasn't
clear if they were separate blasts or echoes.
Since the 2002 Bali blasts, Jemaah Islamiyah
has been tied to at least two
other bombings in Indonesia, both in the capital, Jakarta.
Those blasts, one
at the J.W. Marriott hotel in 2003 and the other outside
the Australian
Embassy in 2004, killed at least 23.
Western and Indonesian intelligence agency
have consistently warned the
group was plotting more attacks. Last month, President Susilo
Bambang
Yudhoyono said he was especially worried that the network
was on the
brink of another blast.
Bali hit by series of blasts, at least 10
deaths feared
Oct. 1 (Kyodo) - The Indonesian resort island
Bali, scene of bloody terrorist bombings in October 2002
that left 202 people dead, was hit by a series of blasts
Saturday that may have killed at least 10 people, Indonesian
radio station El Shinta reported.
National Police Spokesman Sunarko confirmed
the explosions, but has not been able to provide many other
details, although unconfirmed reports say at least 30 people
have been injured.
And the Associated Press quoted Maj. Gen.
Police Ansyaad Mbai, a top Indonesian anti-terrorism official,
as saying the blasts were "clearly the work of terrorists."
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono condemned
the blasts and Indonesian radio was told he was heading
to Bali to investigate.
"The president strongly condemns this
criminal act. At this moment, the president is at the airport,"
his spokesman Andi Mallarangeng was quoted by Reuters as
telling El Shinta radio.
El Shinta also quoted people who telephoned
from Bali as telling the radio station two or three blasts
were near an open-air restaurant at Jimbaran Beach, close
to the Four Seasons Hotel there, at 7:50 p.m., another came
at 8 p.m. in the town square on Kuta Beach.
Both areas are near the Bali capital Denpasar
as is the upscale Nusa Dua Beach, which Metro TV reported
was hit by two other blasts, also about 8 p.m.
Witnesses in Jimbaran said they believe at
least eight people were killed there and one, named Bagas,
told the radio he had seen at least eight bodies lying on
the floor. "Four of them were Westerners," he
said. "I don't know whether they died, but they did
not move."
And radio listener I Wayan Krisna said he
had brought two bodies and "pieces of bodies"
from the Rajash Restaurant in Kuta.
"I took some bodies, including those
of (tourists)," he said, adding the explosion occurred
on the first floor of the three-story restaurant, which
was packed with tourists at the time of the blast.
Others in Kuta told Indonesian media windows
around the town square, near where the deadly nightclub
bombings occurred in 2002, were shattered and several vehicles
had been destroyed or damaged.
The 2002 Bali nightclub bombings were blamed
on Jemaah Islamiyah, the alleged Southeast Asian arm of
the al-Qaida terror network, and several perpetrators have
been sentenced to death or jail terms for planning and setting
those explosions.
Nearly 30 suspects in the Bali bombings have
been arrested and three sentenced to death for terrorism.
Twenty-six others have been sentenced to prison terms ranging
from three years to life.
Indonesian courts have also sentenced other
Muslim militants to death and jail for involvement in a
terrorist attack on the Australian Embassy in South Jakarta
in September 2004 that killed 10 people and for an attack
on the J.W. Marriott Hotel in the capital in August 2003
that killed 12 people.
Police have been hunting two Malaysian nationals
-- Azahari and Noordin Mohammad Top -- who allegedly masterminded
the series of bombings in the country.
The search, however, has so far been unsuccessful.
Expert: Bali Blasts Look Like Work Of Jemaah
Islamiyah
JAKARTA -- A series of apparent bombings early
Saturday evening on Indonesia's resort island of Bali appear
to be the work of al-Qaida-linked terror group Jemaah Islamiyah,
a Jakarta-based security expert told Dow Jones Newswires.
The bombings look like a follow-up to the
group's October 2002 Bali attacks which killed 202 people,
most of them foreign tourists, Ken Conboy, the author of
an upcoming book on Southeast Asian terrorism, said. He
is also a security consultant serving foreign and local
clients in Indonesia.
Jemaah Islamiyah has also been linked to the
suicide bombing of Jakarta's J.W. Marriott hotel which killed
12 people and the September 2004 blast at the Australian
Embassy in Jakarta that killed ten people.
"It looks like Jemaah Islamiyah,"
Conboy told Dow Jones Newswires.
"They saw the 2002 Bali bombing as their
only true success because it inflicted foreign casualties
and the collateral damage weren't Muslims."
Although the majority of Indonesia's 220 million
people are Muslims, Bali is a predominantly Hindu island.
Early domestic media reports indicate that
several near-simultaneous explosions occurred in tourist
areas on Bali beginning at 1150 GMT Saturday killing and
injuring up to 30 people.
An Indonesian anti-terror official told the
Associated Press that bombs caused the blasts, but didn't
attribute them to any specific group.
Saturday's explosions occurred just days after
the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, a respected think
tank, warned that Jemaah Islamiyah had been hit hard by
arrests and prosecutions, but retained the capability to
undertake annual attacks.
Those arrests and prosecutions have included
the group's so-called spiritual leader, Abu Bakar Bashir,
who is serving a 30-month sentence for conspiracy in the
2002 Bali attack.
Indonesia's President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono
warned in August that September and October were "special
months for terrorism" in Indonesia and warned of possible
attacks in that period.
Conboy said that Saturday's attacks were likely
timed to occur before the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan,
which begins Monday, and to take advantage of security forces
distracted by threats of massive public protests over a
more-than-doubling in fuel prices rises implemented Saturday.
"If the past is any precedent, (the bombers)
are a step or two ahead of the authorities and will now
go to ground," Conboy said.
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