Australian Embassy blast kills eight,...

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Registered: 03-18-2000
Australian Embassy blast kills eight,...
1
Thu, 09-09-2004 - 9:46am

Australian Embassy blast kills eight, injures over 160.  Candle 


http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/holnus/001200409091867.htm


A powerful car bomb exploded near the Australian Embassy in Jakarta today, killing eight people and injuring more than 160, witnesses and officials said.


Police immediately blamed Jemaah Islamiyah, the Southeast Asian terror network that is linked to al-Qaida. The group has been accused in several deadly bombings, including the bombing of the JW Marriott hotel in the same neighbourhood last year, in which 12 people were killed.

No one inside the heavily fortified embassy was hurt, said Lyndall Sachs, a spokeswoman for the Australian foreign ministry in Canberra. The bombing flattened the mission's gate, mangled cars and motorbikes on the street and shattered scores of windows in nearby high-rise buildings.

"Initial investigations show this was a car bomb. We do not know whether anyone was in the car," police chief Gen. Dai Bachtiar, said.

The health ministry said eight people had died and 161 were wounded. Three of the dead were policemen guarding the building, police said.

Bachtiar said the bombing bore the hallmark of Jemaah Islamiyah.

"The modus operandi is very similar to other attacks, including the Bali bombings and the Marriott blast" he said. "We can conclude (the perpetrators) are the same group"

The embassy is located on Rasuna Said street, a main thoroughfare in the Kuningan district housing foreign embassies, businesses and shopping malls. Bloody corpses and severed human remains were strewn across the street.

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Registered: 03-18-2000
Fri, 09-10-2004 - 11:58am

Indonesian police 'received text message warning of blast'.


http://212.2.162.45/news/story.asp?j=137642220&p=y37643x5x&n=137643133



Police received a phone text message before the Australian Embassy bombing, warning that foreign missions in Jakarta would be attacked unless the alleged head of the Jemaah Islamiyah terror group was freed, Australia’s foreign minister said today.

Australian Prime Minister John Howard repeated Foreign Minister Alexander Downer’s allegation at a press conference in Canberra, saying the threat was not passed on to Australian Federal Police until hours after Thursday’s bombing.

Indonesian police said they received no such warning.

“That’s not true. Where did Downer get that from?” said spokesman Maj Gen Paiman, who goes by a single name.

Earlier today, Downer told reporters in Jakarta that ”Indonesian police received an SMS 45 minutes before the attack to the effect that Western embassies would be attacked unless Abu Bakar Bashir was released”. He did not elaborate.

Bashir is in jail awaiting trial on charges that he heads Jemaah Islamiyah, which police have accused of carrying out Thursday’s attack in which nine people died. The same group is blamed for the 2002 Bali bombings and an attack last year on the JW Marriott Hotel.

Australia and the US have both publicly accused Bashir of terrorism, and urged Indonesia to prosecute him. Bashir denies any wrongdoing.

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