Al-Qaida group suspected in Jakarta blasts

JAKARTA, July 21 (UPI) -- An al-Qaida-linked group is believed to have carried out luxury hotel bombings in Jakarta that killed nine people and injured 53, including eight Americans.

Police have identified one of the two suspected suicide bombers who died in the 8 a.m. attacks on the Western-owned JW Marriott and nearby Ritz-Carlton hotels on Friday, a report in the Jakarta Post said.

Security cameras showed Nurdin Aziz checked into room 1808 of the Marriott two days before the blast and assembled the bombs for both explosions. An unexploded bomb was found, police said.

The blasts were particularly intense, meaning that identification of people is extremely difficult, and police said they are still trying to identify the second body.

Both suspected bombers are thought to be members of the Southeast Asian terrorist group Jemaah Islamiyah because the bombs were similar to ones found in a recent raid on an Islamic boarding school.

Among the dead were four foreigners: a diplomat and two businessmen from Australia, a New Zealand man and a Singaporean.

Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith, who was visiting Indonesia at the time of the blasts, confirmed the deaths during an interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corp. They are Canberra diplomat Craig Senger, Perth businessman Nathan Verity and another business man from Brisbane.

New Zealander Tim Mackay, a senior executive of cement maker PT Holcim Indonesia, also died in the blast. Singapore Embassy officials have not released the name of their national who died.

Apart from Indonesians and Americans, the injured included nationals from Australia, South Korea, the Netherlands, Italy, Britain, Canada, Norway, Japan and India.

There is speculation that the mastermind behind the bombings is Noordin Mohammed Top, wanted by Indonesia police for alleged roles in previous bombings since around 2000.

A third blast at a shopping center in the Muara Angke area north of the capital two hours after the hotel attacks was not a car bomb as local media speculated but a vehicle with a faulty battery, police said. No one was injured.

Last week's bombing was the first major incident since August 2003, when Jakarta's Marriott hotel suffered a previous attack. A car bomb exploded by the lobby killing 12 people and injuring 150. The dead included a Dutch and a Danish national as well as two Chinese tourists.

Indonesia's worst terrorist attack came in October 2002 when a bomb exploded in a nightclub on the tourist island of Bali killing 202 people, of which 152 were foreigners, and injuring 240.

The Jakarta attacks came two days after Indonesia voted peacefully in a presidential election that will likely return the former army Gen. Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, 59, with a large majority. Media reports say that Susilo captured around 60 percent of the vote, meaning a run-off in September would not be necessary.

Former President Megawati Sukarnoputri is thought to be in second place and Vice President Jusuf Kalla in third.

The official final count in the second direct presidential election since the fall of the Suharto dictatorship in 1998 is expected this week. Around 170 million people voted throughout the archipelago nation, which includes 17,000 islands.