Fears of a fresh wave of Islamist bombings swept Indonesia yesterday, after a powerful car bomb exploded outside a luxury hotel in central Jakarta during the lunchtime rush, killing at least 13 people and injuring about 150.
The attack on the Marriott hotel, often used for functions by the US embassy, came only two days before the first verdict is due in the trials of the alleged perpetrators of last October’s Bali bombing in which 202 people were killed.
No warning was given and no one has claimed responsibility for the blast, which interrupted the call to prayer at 12.45pm in the world’s most populous Muslim country.
Body parts and ripped clothing were strewn across the Marriott’s forecourt, lobby and main cafe as the blast blew out dozens of windows in the hotel and neighbouring buildings, one of which houses several embassies. ”People were screaming, panicking,” said Sodik, a witness who was having lunch on the 27th floor of an adjacent building. ”I thought it was an earthquake.”
The worst-affected area was the hotel’s lobby and ground-floor cafe, only a few metres from the Toyota Kijang minivan which police believe contained the bomb.
One survivor, who gave her name as Audina, said she only escaped with a few scratches because a pillar in the cafe shielded her from the worst of the devastation. ”There was a huge bang, incredible heat and then all this glass came crashing down on us,” she said.
”It was clear it was a bomb. People were screaming and falling over trying to get out. Luckily we could get out to the street straight away so we did not have to go past the burning cars outside or the burning and crying victims.” Audina said that when she and her friends reached the road they saw several cars and people on fire. ”I will never forget these taxi drivers,” she said. ”They were on fire and screaming. Luckily two men helped them.”
”It was panic. Mad panic,” said Stephen Mellor, a foreign resident who was parking his car less than 100 metres from the hotel at the time of the blast. ”The police and paramedics did what they could, but they seemed overwhelmed. People were almost hijacking cars in desperation and piling the injured in them to take to hospital.”
A man who asked not to be named said he was saved by a thick wooden door. ”We were just going into a meeting room above the cafe when the bomb went off,” he said. ”I was behind the door so escaped being hit. We ran out and down to the lobby. There was blood everywhere. There were people covered in blood, there were ripped clothes and I just kept running to get out. I have never seen anything like it.”
Diplomats believe the most likely culprit is Jemaah Islamiyah, the south-east Asian Islamist terrorist group linked to and at times funded by al-Qaida.
Twelve Indonesians and a Dutchman were reportedly killed. The Dutchman was named as Hans Winkelmolen, the president of PT Rabobank Duta Indonesia, according to a company spokesperson. Indonesia’s Antara news agency reported that eight foreigners — two Americans, two Singaporeans, two Chinese, and one each from Australia and New Zealand — were among the injured. No Britons were thought to have been injured, the Foreign Office said.
The bomb blew a crater in the forecourt, which collapsed beneath the minivan into the car park below. Indonesia’s police chief, General Da’i Bachtiar, said 22 vehicles were damaged or destroyed.
A security guard at the neighbouring Plaza Mutiara, Taufan Sidik, said the panic was so great in his building after the majority of the windows were blown out and the building caught fire that one woman jumped from several floors up. ”I’m pretty certain she died,” he said. The injured were carried from the scene on doors, corrugated iron from the fence of the building site opposite, and any makeshift stretchers rescuers could find. They were rushed to hospitals in a fleet of ambulances, private cars and a few on the back of motorcycles.
Eddy Richardy, who is recovering in intensive care at the Metropolitan medical centre after undergoing brain surgery last week, said the unit was flooded with victims.
”More than 30 people were brought in,” he said by telephone. ”Clothes have stuck to people and many are crying. Their faces are destroyed. The nurses and doctors are just going crazy trying to treat the injured.”
The 30-storey, 333-room Marriott, which opened two years ago, was a favourite of many foreigners in Jakarta. The US embassy has held its July 4 Independence Day celebration there for the past two years. Indonesia’s vice-president, Hamzah Haz, said the attack may have been targeted against US interests.
Gen Bachtiar said it was not clear whether the blast was a suicide bomb but it appeared the vehicle was moving at the time of the detonation. ”From the things we found at the crime scene it looks very much like the bomb in Bali,” he said.
Indonesian forensic experts, helped by members of the Australian federal police, who have been helping with the Bali blast, have recovered the minivan’s number plate and chassis and engine numbers and the owner is being traced, the police chief said.
Later in the day, President Megawati Sukarnoputri toured the wreckage and visited the wounded at a hospital. Only four days ago, Megawati gave a state of the nation address vowing to ”dismantle the terrorist network to its roots”.
The chief security minister, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, said the government had ordered tighter security checks at airports and other public places, and promised further measures today. Calling the blast a ”diabolical and inhumane terrorist attack,” he added: ”We cannot allow any space for terrorism.”
In Washington, the White House spokesperson, Scott McClellan, said: ”This terrorist act on innocent civilians is a reminder that we are still waging a global war on terrorism. The global coalition remains steadfast in our efforts to pursue terrorists and bring them to justice.” – Guardian Unlimited Â