Hell returns to Bali

2005-10-01 22:40

Jimbaran - Bombs exploded in three packed tourist restaurants on the Indonesian island of Bali on Saturday killing at least 32 people and injuring over 100, just days before the third anniversary of the nightclub attacks there.

Police said the first blast tore through the Raja restaurant in the shopping district of Kuta, the scene of the 2002 bombings which left 202 people dead, mostly foreign tourists.

Minutes later, two further explosions ripped through a pair of beachfront restaurants 30km away in the picturesque fishing village of Jimbaran.

"The explosion in Kuta square took place at 19:30 (11:30 GMT). At 19:40 was the first blast in Jimbaran and at 1941, the second blast," said Bali police spokesperson AS Reniban.

Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono immediately condemned the latest outrage and vowed to hunt down the perpetrators. "These are clearly terrorist attacks because the targets were random and public places," he said.

The October 12, 2002 attacks were blamed on the al-Qaeda-linked Jemaah Islamiyah and both analysts and governments were quick to blame the pan-Asian Islamic extremist group for the latest bombings.

A French diplomat who visited two hospitals in Bali on Saturday said at least 32 people had been confirmed dead and 101 had been injured in the blasts, which came during the peak tourist season.

At the scene of the Kuta bomb, bodies lay covered by bloodied blankets as police moved among crowds of onlookers using flashlights to pick their way through the gutted interior of the restaurant.

British tourist Daniel Martin told the BBC he was standing in a building next to the restaurant in Kuta when a "tremendous" explosion erupted.

"It was just sheer chaos with no one really taking control," Martin said, adding that "there were no police or anyone else around for a good while. It was everyone pitching in to help the wounded.

"There were people lying in the street with serious wounds, blood pouring into the street ... I was afraid to go into the actual restaraunt for fear of what I might see in there."

An eyewitness who arrived at the scene in Jimbaran minutes after the explosion said he saw at least eight bodies, including four foreigners. "There are also lots of body parts," Bagas Saputra said.

Senior police commissioner Dewa Parsana told journalists in Kuta that the blast there had not been as powerful as the explosions in Jimbaran.

"The blast there (in Jimbaran) is much stronger because there we found a head that was separated some 50 metres from its body," Parsana said.

Judging from the timing and the maximum impact of the blasts, he said the bombings were "very well planned."

Television images from Sanglah hospital in the Bali capital Denpasar showed several foreign tourists, wearing nothing but shorts, being treated for injuries.

Australia, which lost 88 citizens in the 2002 attacks, confirmed at least one national had been killed and three others injured.

"You can assume it's an attack by an organisation like Jemaah Islamiyah, just speaking from experience, but of course at this stage no one has claimed responsibility," said Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer.

Indonesian reports listed at least one Japanese national killed and five Koreans injured. A British foreign minister, Lord Treisman, told Britain's Sky News that US, Australian, Japanese and Korean tourists were among the injured.

World leaders immediately offered their support and uttered condemnation after the bombings, French President Jacques Chirac saying he was "stunned and saddened" by the news.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair condemned the attacks "in the strongest possible terms" and said his government would help in any way it could.

President Yudhoyono had called in late August for tighter security in the world's most populous Muslim nation during September and October, saying these appeared to be favoured months for terrorist acts.

He said the possibility of more attacks remained real since two of the key bombers accused of being behind the 2002 Bali attacks, Malaysians Azahari Husin and Noordin Mohammad Top, remained on the loose.

Three militants have been sentenced to death for their part in those bombings and two others are serving life sentences for the attacks.

- AFP