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Videotape shows suicide bombers behind Bali blast
(DPA)
2 October 2005
BALI, Indonesia - The three blasts on Bali which left at least 22
dead and nearly 130 injured, including dozens of foreigners, was the
work of multiple suicide bombers, the initial probe into the events
showed on Sunday.
A videotape recording, taken on a hand-held recorder from an
injured victim inside one of the locations that was bombed, the
Raja's restaurant in Kuta, allegedly captured one of the suicide
bombers right before the attack.
In the videotape, shown to journalists by authorities in Bali, a
young Asian man, who police suspect is one of the bombers, in a black
T-shirt and blue jeans can be seen walking into the establishment
with his hand near his belt.
He disappears from the camera and then can be seen again walking
into the middle of the restaurant before he disappears from the
screen again and a flash of light appears as the bomb is allegedly
triggered.
Bali Police Chief Made Mangku Pastika said in a the press
conference on Sunday: "This is why I am convinced that this is a
suicide bombing based on the scientific crime investigation and video
footage."
Police also showed photos of the severed heads of the three
suspected suicide bombers, their faces easily identifiable, and
explained how the preserved heads, upper torsos and legs and missing
mid-sections indicated that they were likely the suicide bombers.
Pastika during the press conference also revived the death toll
down to 22, with two killed in the attack at Kuta and 20 in Jimbaran,
saying the previous toll was due to the fact that there were 26 body
bags, but that four of them contained body parts.
The death toll included four caucasions and one Asian, as well as
the suicide bombers, Pastika said.
Police were hunting down two cars suspected of being used to
carry the explosive materials, which Pastika said were high-explosive
TNT possibly from outside Bali, in Saturday's night attacks at three
different places in two locations in Bali's popular tourist areas of
Jimbaran and Kuta.
"We're still pursuing the (suspected) cars, including blockading
the entrance and exit gates into and from the island," the state-run
Antara news agency quoted Balis police chief, Inspector General I
Made Mangku Pastika, as saying.
Senior anti-terror official Police Major General Ansyaad Mbai
said the attacks were most likely the work of three suicide bombers,
but it was still too early to confirm the initial findings.
"The early assumption is that the Bali bombing was a suicide
bombing, carried out by three people," Mbai said in an interview with
El-Shinta private radio.
"To answer this, we should wait for the final investigation and
lab test results. But based on what we have seen, this is a suicide
bombing," he said.
Mbai dismissed initial reports that the bombs were planted in the
sand at the Jimbaran beach cafes as "speculation" and said they had
received no reports of threats prior to the attack and were not
expecting any.
"Based on previous experience, there are no threats by this group
before carrying out an attack," he said.
National police chief General Sutanto said the explosive
materials had been twisted around the suicide bombers' bodies. The
exact nature of the materials was being investigated.
Some reports put the death toll as high as 36, but police,
doctors and health officials put the dead at 26 on Sunday. Among
those killed are 14 Indonesians, three Australians, and one Japanese.
"We fear the death toll will increase further," an official at
Bali's Sanglah Hospital told Deutsche Presse-Agentur .
At least 129 others were wounded, including 20 Australians, eight
South Koreans, four Americans and four Japanese. One seriously
wounded 60-year-old Australian was flown to Singapore for treatment.
In a fresh statement after visiting the scene, President Susilo
Bambang Yudhoyono, who arrived in Bali late on Sunday afternoon, said
the attacks were most likely the work of "suicide bombers".
"Preliminary investigation results show that this bombing was
carried out by suicide bombers," Yudhoyono told a press
conference. "The Indonesian government strongly deplores this
inhumane act."
"We will speed up the investigation, find the perpetrators, and
bring them to justice to get equal punishment," he said.
Yudhoyono expressed his appreciation for offers of assistance
from other countries as part of international, regional and bilateral
efforts to face this "terrorist act."
Health Minister Siti Fadilah Supari said the treatment of the
victim was made easier by the fact there were fewer burn injuries
than following the October 2002 bombings in Bali, which had triggered
fires, and ultimately left 202 dead, mostly foreign tourists.
Medical teams had also become more experienced in dealing with
such horror, she added. "Everything is on the right track," Supari
told reporters in Bali.
"We are thankful that they weren't burned. That helps a lot. And
the team handling the victims are already trained from the last
bombing," she added.
While authorities were still working to identify the terrorist
groups responsible for the blasts, many were already fingering the
country's two most-wanted Malaysian terrorists, who continue to evade
a nationwide manhunt.
The fugitives, Azahari bin Husin and Noordin Mohammed Top, are
believed to be senior members of the Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) regional
terror group.
They are blamed, with other JI members, for being behind the most
deadly attacks in the country in recent years, including the 2002
Bali bombings. JI has been linked to Al Qaeda, the terrorist network
around Osama bin Laden.
Saturday night's nearly simultaneous blasts occurred just 11 days
before the anniversary of the devastating October 12, 2002 bombings
on the island.
Terror experts say factors that include the timing and nature of
the blasts suggest the two Malaysians should be strongly suspected of
being behind the attack.
"We have to put the two Malaysians at the top of the suspect
list," Sidney Jones, a leading expert on terrorism in the region from
the International Crisis Group in Jakarta, told Deutsche Presse-
Agentur .
"They're still at large, they,re determined to strike against
Western targets, they have the skills and they have the resources,"
Jones said.
The 2002 Bali blasts were followed by a bomb attack in August
2003 on the J.W. Marriott Hotel in Jakarta, killing 12, and the
September 2004 attack outside the Australian embassy, killing 11 and
wounding some 180. Those attacks have also been linked to the two
Malaysians.
Citing intelligence reports, President Yudhoyono and others had
warned since August that terrorists were likely to launch an attack
in Indonesia over the next few months. The period August to October
has been dubbed the "bomb season" due to the timing of the last three
major attacks.
The first two blast's on Saturday night hit beachside cafes
between the Four Seasons Hotel and Bali Intercontinental Resort in
Jimbaran on Bali,s south coast, while another explosion occurred
outside the German-managed restaurant Raja's in Kuta Square in Kuta,
the popular tourist centre and site of the 2002 bombings.
The blasts was another nightmare for Bali's tourist industry, the
island's lifeblood which had only recently recovered from the
devastated terror attacks in October 2002.
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