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Blast Targets Australian Embassy in Jakarta
JAKARTA,
Sept 9 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – At least eight people
were killed and more than 100 injured Thursday, September 9, in a
massive blast outside the Australian Embassy in Jakarta.
Australian
Foreign Minister Alexander Downer described the blast as a terrorist
attack against the country.
Jakarta
's police chief said the blast was possibly caused by a suicide car
bombing.
Indonesian
officials confirmed a bomb had caused the blast, which follows alerts
by the
United States
and
Australia
warning that extremists blamed for other attacks in
Indonesia
could strike again, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Officials
at hospitals in
Jakarta
confirmed eight fatalities from Thursday's blast and at least 99
injured. A list of casualties issued by the hospital showed up to five
foreigners were among the injured.
The
explosion at around
10:30 am
(0330 GMT) prompted the immediate evacuation of the embassy and caused
a sharp drop of nearly four percent on the
Jakarta
stock market.
Witnesses
said a police truck and a taxi in front of the embassy had been blown
apart and the high steel fence surrounding the building in the
Kuningan business and residential district was damaged.
Downer
said it was too early to know who was behind the attack.
Massive
Destruction
A
guard's post in front of the embassy was also destroyed by the bomb,
which exploded just four meters (13 feet) from the embassy's gates.
The
force of the blast punched windows out of nearby tower blocks and
badly mangled the security perimeter around the embassy.
Reporters
at the scene saw burning debris in the road outside the embassy,
roughly 100 meters (yards) from the perimeter wall, as emergency
services tried to extinguish flames and tend to the injured.
Speaking
after Thursday's bombing, Australian Prime Minister John Howard said
his country would not bow to terrorism.
"This
is not a nation that is going to be intimidated by acts of terrorism.
We are a strong, robust democracy," Howard told reporters in
Melbourne
.
In
March, an attack on trains in
Madrid
just before a Spanish election was credited with causing the defeat of
a conservative administration which had also allied itself with the
United States
over
Iraq
.
Australia
votes in general elections on October 9 in which the conservative
government's staunch support for the
US
invasion of
Iraq
, to which it contributed troops, and the US-led "war on
terror" are key issues.
The
US-led invasion of
Iraq
has increased sentiments against the
United States
and other countries who sent troops for the offensive, including
Australia
.
Indonesia
is the world’s largest Muslim country, with population of over 200
million Muslims.
Deliberate
Strike
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Howard
said his country would not bow to terrorism (AFP)
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Downer,
who is due to fly into
Jakarta
later Thursday, said the "very large" bomb attack was a
deliberate strike on Australian interests.
"It
is clearly a terrorist attack, it was outside the Australian embassy,
you would have to conclude that it was directed towards
Australia
," Downer told reporters in
Adelaide
.
Downer
said it was still unclear whether the bombing, which came two days
before the third anniversary of the September 11 attacks, was a
suicide bombing like previous attacks on the Jakarta Marriott hotel
and in
Bali
.
But
Indonesia
's police chief said the car bombing at the embassy is believed to be
the work of the same group which staged deadly strikes in
Bali
and on the city's Marriott hotel.
Da'i
Bachtiar told reporters at the scene of Thursday's blast that the
incident bore the hallmarks of the October 2002
Bali
blasts and the August 2003 Marriott attack, both carried out by the
ghostly "Jemaah Islamiyah".
Some
202 people, among them 88 Australians, died in the suicide attacks on
Bali
nightclubs while 12 people perished in the suicide strike on the
US-franchised Marriott.
Both
Australia
and the
United States
last week raised new warnings urging their citizens to avoid Western
hotels in
Jakarta
. The warnings reminded citizens to defer non-essential travel to the
Southeast Asian archipelago.
Islamic
scholars had slammed the
Bali
bombings, assuring it had nothing to do with Islam.
Prominent
moderate Muslim scholar Sheikh Yusuf Al-Qaradawi had branded the
bombing as a heinous
crime "which is no more than a total barbarism that is
void of morality and human feeling as well."
Islamic
societies and groups in
Indonesia
had also lashed out at the blasts, warning
of the negative consequences it may have on Indonesian
Muslims.
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