Jakarta hunts militants after embassy attack
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-09-11 01:00

Indonesian police launched a nationwide manhunt on Friday for al Qaeda-linked militants blamed for a suicide car bomb attack outside the Australian embassy that jolted both countries ahead of elections.

Australian Prime Minister John Howard said intelligence agencies had warned that those responsible for the attack in Jakarta on Thursday could strike again.

A relative of killed 20-year-old student Rina Dewi Puspita holds her portrait as others mourn during a funeral service in Jakarta September 10, 2004. [Reuters]

"The information they have available indicates that the number of operatives ... is sufficiently large to support the fear that there could be another attack," Howard told reporters in Canberra.

Indonesian police have blamed Jemaah Islamiah, a militant group seen as the regional arm of al Qaeda, for the embassy attack, which killed nine people and wounded 182. Most of the victims were Indonesian.

At least one suicide bomber stopped a mini-van packed with explosives outside the embassy, where it detonated, police said.

Thursday's bombing underlined the vulnerability of the world's most populous Muslim nation to militant violence.

It came days before Indonesia's presidential run-off, two days before the third anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States and a month before Australia's general election.

Jemaah Islamiah was behind the Bali bombings in 2002 that killed 202 people and also an attack on the J.W. Marriott Hotel in Jakarta last year that killed 12.

It appeared to admit responsibility for the embassy attack in an Internet statement that could not immediately be authenticated. The statement warned of more attacks unless Australia withdrew its forces from Iraq.

ELECTION BATTLES

An Indonesian anti-terrorist squad carries their rifles during a show of force at Jakarta police headquarters on September 10, 2004. Hundreds of elite Jakarta police troops paraded in Jakarta on Friday in preparations to secure the capital.[Reuters]

Howard, a strong ally of Washington, has said Australia's 850 troops in and around Iraq would stay until the job was done. Opposition leader Mark Latham wants to bring them home by Christmas. They are in a tight race for the Oct 9. election.

Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri has at times come under fire for not being tough enough with militants, although she did cut short a foreign trip to visit the bomb site.

She faces off against Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, her former chief security minister, in a presidential run-off on Sept 20. Yudhoyono is tipped to win.

Speaking in Jakarta, Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said Indonesian police were warned 45 minutes before the bombing that Western missions would be attacked if the accused spiritual leader of Jemaah Islamiah was not freed.

Downer told a news conference the warning to release Abu Bakar Bashir was conveyed in a phone text message.

"(They) received an SMS message about 45 minutes before the attack yesterday that there would be an attack on Western embassies unless Abu Bakar Bashir was released," Downer said.

Australian Federal Police Commissioner Mick Keelty told the news conference it would have been difficult to act on the text warning since such threats came in regularly. Indonesian police said they had little comment on the purported threat.

Bashir, 66, is in police detention awaiting formal charges over accusations of involvement in terror acts. He has denied any wrongdoing or links to Jemaah Islamiah.

Keelty said up to 200 kg (440 pounds) of potassium chlorate was used to make the bomb. The composition was similar to those used by Jemaah Islamiah in the suicide attacks on Bali and the Marriott, Keelty said. Among the Bali dead were 88 Australians.

OUTRAGE

The embassy strike left a large crater outside the compound and tore off the glass fronts of surrounding office towers.

Many Indonesian office workers paid their respects at the bomb site, leaving floral wreaths and flowers.

As darkness fell, hundreds of the friends of a banking student killed in the blast gathered to hold candles, flowers and her picture as they chanted slogans calling for national unity.

Newspaper editorials called for the attackers to be executed.

"We are ashamed because as a nation we are considered a crime nest. We are ashamed because the police are not able to prevent another bomb blast," said the Media Indonesia daily.

Police have said their key suspect was Azahari Husin, a fugitive Malaysian bomb-making expert and JI member believed to have made the bombs used in the Marriott and Bali blasts.

Suyitno Landung, head of the police criminal investigation department, told reporters that Azahari had recruited at least nine suicide bombers after the Marriott bombing.

Six have been arrested, and they had told police three others were still at large, Landung said, adding police were trying to determine if they were involved in the embassy attack.

The recruits called themselves the "brides," Landung said.

Close

Today's Top News     Top World News
China's imports to hit US$1 trillion by 2010         Teachers honoured for noble contribution         200 pupils poisoned by school dinner         SOEs, chiefs face audit under new rule         Steady growth won on industrial front         Arts awards join forces	Taliban say attack shows they can strike at will       From dismal Chechnya, women turn to bombs       U.S. to pay fliers $1.5 million for pilfered items       Gore calls Cheney remarks 'sleazy'       JI 'claims Jakarta car bombing'       Clinton takes short walks in hospital