It’s hard to believe that, with things like this happening day after day, there are still significant forces in America that are angrier with me for reporting it than with the perpetrators for all their mayhem. From AP, and Nicolei:
A powerful car bomb exploded outside the gates of the Australian Embassy in Jakarta on Thursday, killing seven people and wounding nearly 100 in an attack police blamed on al-Qaida-linked terrorists.
The blast flattened the embassy’s gate, mangled cars on the busy commercial street and shattered the windows of nearby high-rise buildings. Dazed survivors desperately tried to locate colleagues and relatives.
“I can’t find my family,” said Suharti, who had eight relatives working in the mission. “I am terrified. I don’t know where they are.”
A senior Indonesian police officer who asked not to be identified said seven people died in the 10:15 a.m. blast, including three policemen guarding the building. A doctor at a nearby hospital said 98 people were admitted with injuries, none of them foreigners.
“Initial investigations show this was a car bomb. We do not know whether anyone was in the car,” police chief Gen. Dai Bachtiar said.
About a dozen Australians were slightly wounded, mostly by flying glass, an embassy spokeswoman said.