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At least nine people have been killed and 50 injured in two separate bomb attacks at western-owned hotels in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta. No group has claimed responsibility but the bombings, which appear to have been carried out by suicide attackers, are being blamed on Jemaah Islamiyah, an al-Qaida-linked terrorist group suspected of carrying out similar attacks in south-east Asia.

The blasts occurred virtually simultaneously at the JW Marriott and the Ritz-Carlton hotels in central Jakarta at about 8am local time. Jemaah Islamiyah was suspected of attacking the same Marriott hotel in 2003, when a car bomb killed 12 people. Today, a third bomb exploded in a car along a toll road in north Jakarta, where it is thought two people were killed. Police found an unexploded bomb on the 18th floor of the Marriott.

The south Jakarta police chief Firman Santyabudi confirmed that the explosions had occurred at the luxury hotels in the upmarket neighbourhood of Kuningan, an area popular with foreigners, with many bars, offices and embassies. "There were explosions heard from two separate places, one the JW Marriott, the other in the Ritz-Carlton. We are still trying to check because right now we are still helping the victims," Santyabudi said. Theo Sambuaga, chairman of the parliamentary security commission, said there were "indications of suicide bombs" at both hotels.

The Manchester United football team was scheduled to stay at the Ritz tomorrow and Sunday for a friendly match against the Indonesian All Stars. In the wake of the attacks, United cancelled the game and its flight to Jakarta. The bombings came two weeks after a presidential vote which is expected to result in the re-election of Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who has been credited with tackling militancy in Indonesia . Responding to the attacks, Yudhoyono blamed terrorists but said it was too early to single out Jemaah Islamiyah. "Those who carried out this attack and those who planned it will be arrested and tried according to the law," he said in a televised address to the nation. A hospital official said those wounded in the blasts included 13 foreigners.

A New Zealander, Tim Mackay, president director of the cement maker PT Holcim Indonesia, was among those killed, the company said. One hospital emergency room said it was treating 15 people. The Foreign Office said it had no indication of any British casualties. The bombs were planted in the Ritz-Carlton's Air Langga restaurant and the basement of the Marriott, according to intelligence received by a police operational chief, Arief Wahyunadi. It is unclear how the bombers managed to get any equipment into the building: most major hotels in Jakarta take security precautions such as checking incoming vehicles and requiring visitors to pass through metal detectors, because of past attacks.

The blasts blew out windows and scattered debris and glass across the street, after ripping the facade off the Ritz. "I fell because of an explosion, I did not know where it came from, but after I saw clearly it came from the left side of the JW Marriott Hotel," Yanuar, an employee at the Marriott, told Reuters. "There were bodies on the ground, one of them had no stomach," said a man who lives near the hotels and who arrived at the Marriott before emergency services. "It was terrible." There have not been any major bomb blasts in Indonesia for four years, and the presidential election passed off peacefully.

A terrorism analyst, Rohan Gunaratna, said: "The only group with the intention and capability to mount attacks upon Western targets in Jemaah Islamiyah. I have no doubt Jemaah Islamiyah was responsible for this attack." Police have detained most of the key figures in Jemaah Islamiyah, and rounded up hundreds of other sympathisers and lesser figures. But Gunaratna said radical ideologues sympathetic to the network were still able to preach extremism in Indonesia, helping provide an infrastructure that could support terrorism. A security analyst, Rory Medcalf, from the Lowy Institute in Sydney, told Reuters: "

In a way this may be taken as a signal, after the Indonesian elections, a reminder that JI is still in the game." Sidney Jones, a Jakarta-based expert on Islamic militants for the International Crisis Group, said: "It's more likely to be a splinter group than JI itself, which doesn't mean you couldn't have JI members but it's very unlikely to be JI as an organisation behind this attack."

Source:  Guardian

July 17/09

RITZ-CARLETON HOTEL IN JAKARTA IS TRANSFORMED INTO RUBBLES AFTER A

 SUICIDE BOMBER EXPLODED DEVICES 

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