A good summary piece on the Jakarta bombings: “Jihad in Jakarta: Rescuers tend the wounded outside the Ritz-Carlton hotel,” by Tom Allard for the Sydney Morning Herald, July 18 (thanks to Mohammed):
CO-ORDINATED explosions ripped through two luxury Jakarta hotels yesterday, killing eight people and wounding more than 50 others, including 18 foreigners, in an attack that targeted Westerners as they sat down for breakfast….
Suicide bombers were suspected of being behind the mass murders, which took place when explosives smuggled inside the JW Marriott and Ritz Carlton hotels were detonated within minutes of each other at about 7.45am, Jakarta time. A third bomb later exploded near a shopping centre in the city’s north.
Explosives were also found, and defused, in a room on the 18th floor of the JW Marriott, which authorities believe was the nerve centre for the attacks….
The President, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, said he believed the attacks were carried out by a “terrorist group”. He did not name the group and no one has claimed responsibility but analysts widely suspect hardline elements of Jemaah Islamiah, the group behind the Bali bombings, of being responsible….
The two hotels had been considered the most secure in Jakarta, yet were infiltrated by a group of terrorists who it was believed had posed as hotel guests.
The bombs were detonated near restaurants in both hotels to ensure maximum damage. While not as powerful as the car bombs that rocked Jakarta from 2002 to 2004, the explosives caused as many casualties because they were placed inside the hotels….
Jemaah Islamiah is widely believed to have split into two factions, those who want to pursue a non-violent approach to installing sharia law and those supporting Top’s strategy of launching mass casualty attacks.
Carl Ungerer, a terrorism analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, said many had become unwisely complacent about the terrorist threat in Indonesia….
They’re complacent not just in Indonesia.