Suicide bombers 'probably behind Bali blasts'

BALI, Indonesia - Suicide bombers are likely to have been behind the co-ordinated blasts in Bali that killed 25 people and wounded more than 100, a senior Indonesian counter-terrorism official said today.  

Police said three bombs tore through restaurants packed with evening diners, two at outdoor seafood eateries on Jimbaran Beach and one at a steak bar at Kuta Beach in an area surrounded by shops and jammed with pedestrians, including children.  

At least 107 people were wounded and there are fears the toll could rise.  

Asked whether the blasts on the resort island were suicide bombings, Ansyaad Mbai told Reuters: "Indications lead that way. We found heads detached from their bodies and all of them were around the area of the blasts." 

Mbai, head of the counter-terrorism desk at the office the chief security minister, said he did not know whether the bombers wore explosive vests or carried the devices with them.

A forensics team picked through the debris in the Jimbaran area, where a row of restaurants had been closed off by police.

Chairs and tables had been blown apart but the buildings appeared largely undamaged.

Surfing tour guide Wayan Jipang, 33, told Reuters that when the bombs went off: "It was panic. Everyone was trying to run away. I saw limbs, I saw heads on the beach. It was chaos."

Bali's police chief Made Mangku Pastika visited the blast site at Raja's restaurant in Kuta Beach, on Sunday, where aside from piles of shattered glass on the street and a mangled awning, signs of damage to the building or surrounding areas were few.

The 2002 blasts included a large car bomb that flattened its main nightclub target and ripped into buildings for blocks.
Asked if suicide bombers were responsible for the latest blasts, Pastika told reporters: "We have not come to that conclusion yet. We need to develop the investigation."

"We want to search things that may be overlooked. We need to search and re-search again," Pastika said.

Police had blocked off much of the street in front of the restaurant, where a forensics team was at work.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono branded the blasts as acts of terrorism and vowed to catch those responsible. The United States, Britain, Australia and UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan also condemned the attacks.

Security experts said the strikes bore the hallmarks of Jemaah Islamiah, a network seen as the regional arm of al Qaeda. 

Hard to prevent 

Ken Conboy, a Jakarta-based security expert, told Reuters it was difficult to prevent such attacks. "It's just a very hard place to protect if you look at where they hit."

" ... places like Kuta Square, those are just big shopping areas and they're basically outdoors on the street," he said, referring to one of the blast sites near the scene of the 2002 explosions.

Bali's Sanglah hospital said 25 dead had been brought in. So far 15 bodies had been identified, comprising 12 Indonesians, including a six-year-old boy, two Australians and a Japanese national. Australia said three of its citizens were feared dead.

The wounded included 14 Australians, six South Koreans, four Americans, three Japanese, and 49 Indonesians, with other nationalities unknown as of early Sunday morning local time.

The blasts are a fresh blow to the tourism industry, the island's lifeblood, which only recently recovered from the devastating 2002 blasts. Bali has been packed with tourists in recent weeks, many young Australians. Restaurants, hotels and shops were brimming with visitors in similar numbers to pre-October 2002 levels.

But a Reuters television cameraman at Bali's airport on Sunday morning said so far it appeared to be business as usual there, without the rush to leave seen after the 2002 bombings. 

Jemaah Islamiah

Police have blamed Jemaah Islamiah (JI), which intelligence experts say is al Qaeda's southeast Asian network, for a series of attacks against Western targets in the world's most populous Muslim nation, including the 2002 Bali blasts. The group has launched roughly one major attack each year since then.

"We will catch the perpetrators and punish them," Yudhoyono said in Jakarta, adding he would go to Bali on today.
Australian Prime Minister John Howard said on Sunday the bombings were aimed at undermining the moderate leadership in Indonesia that is a threat to Islamic extremism.

He also ordered assistance to blast victims.

"I've given instructions that medical evacuation be offered to anybody who needs medical evacuation irrespective of nationality," he told Australian television.

A spokesman for Qantas Airways, Australia's biggest airline, said it planned to fly a 230-seat Boeing 767 aircraft to Bali later on Sunday carrying medical and security teams and it would return to Australia with passengers wanting to leave Bali.

Bali, 960 km east of Jakarta, is Indonesia's most popular destination for foreign tourists. Australia advised its citizens on Sunday to defer non-essential travel to Indonesia, saying the possibility of further attacks could not be ruled out.

- REUTERS