Australian embassy bomb kills eight

London Guardian | September 9 2004

At least eight people were today killed in a suicide car bomb attack on the Australian embassy in Jakarta.

The blast, which came during election campaigns in both Indonesia and Australia, happened outside the building at 10.15am local time (0415 BST), wounding up to 100 people.

The dead were believed to be three policemen and five bystanders, all of whom were thought to be Indonesian. "The ground shook so hard I fell down," Joko Triyanto, a security guard, told the Associated Press.

The blast flattened the gate of the fortress-like embassy, mangled cars and motorbikes on the street outside it, and blew off the glass fronts of office towers nearby. Charred debris and body parts littered the road outside the embassy.

No one inside the heavily protected building was injured or killed, but Australia's foreign minister, Alexander Downer, said the bomb was clearly aimed at Australia. "It was outside the Australian embassy. You would have to conclude that it was directed towards Australia," he said.

However, a spokesman for the Indonesian foreign ministry disputed his interpretation of events. "The victims here are ordinary Indonesians," the spokesman said. "We cannot reduce the nature of the threat only to foreign envoys or foreign governments. We are all potential victims."

Security analysts including the former US counter-terrorism chief, Richard Clarke, had warned Australia was more at risk of a Madrid-style attack during its election campaign than the US because of Australian parties' differing policies on keeping the country's troops in Iraq.

The campaign in the run-up to the October 9 election has been dominated by the military commitment to the US of the prime minister, John Howard. The opposition Labor party - running neck and neck in the polls - claims his stance has made Australians more vulnerable to terrorist attacks.

Mr Howard today told reporters in Melbourne: "This is not a nation that is going to be intimidated by acts of terrorism."

Over recent weeks, several western embassies, including Australia's, had warned their citizens about possible attacks by Islamist extremists. The US embassy yesterday told Americans to stay away from the Kuningan district where the blast occurred.

Last year, 12 people were killed in a suicide attack on Jakarta's nearby JW Marriott hotel.

Although it was unclear who was responsible, Indonesia has been hit by a series of deadly bombings of western targets by militants belonging to Jemaah Islamiyah, a regional network linked to al-Qaida.

"The modus operandi is very similar to other attacks, including the Bali bombings and the Marriott blast," the Jakarta police chief, General Dai Bachtiar, said. "We can conclude [the perpetrators] are the same group."

Malaysian security officials blamed one of south-east Asia's most wanted men, the British-trained engineer Azahari Husin, for the attack. A member of Jemaah Islamiyah, he has been linked to a number of attacks in Indonesia, including the 2002 Bali bombings.

Mr Azahari is believed to be protected by a small circle of Jemaah Islamiyah members, and may have timed the attack as a response to Indonesia's decision this month to file terror charges against the group's reputed leader, the militant cleric Abu Bakar Ba'aysir.

Australia immediately issued a travel warning to its citizens to defer all non-essential travel to Indonesia. The foreign office said Australians in Indonesia who were concerned about their safety should consider leaving.

The bombing - which happened only two days before the third anniversary of the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington - also coincided with the Indonesian presidential campaign.

Two secular nationalists - the incumbent, Megawati Sukarnoputri, and her former security minister, Bambang Susilo Yudhoyono - are running for the presidency on September 20.

Ms Sukarnoputri, who was in neighbouring Brunei to attend a royal wedding at the time of the explosion, cut short her stay and returned to Jakarta.

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