Continue reading »]]> Indonesian police Saturday were studying DNA evidence from the remains of two suicide bombers who carried out twin attacks on luxury Jakarta hotels, as security was tightened across the country.

Suspected Islamist suicide bombers detonated powerful devices at the Ritz-Carlton and JW Marriott hotels in an upmarket business district Friday, leaving nine dead and up to 50 injured including at least 18 foreigners.

A New Zealand businessman was confirmed dead and Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith, who is due in Jakarta later Saturday, said he feared the worst for three missing Australians, including diplomat Craig Senger.

National police chief General Bambang Hendarso Danuri called on hotels and shopping malls across the vast, mainly Muslim archipelago of 234 million people to raise their security protocols amid warnings of follow-up attacks.

A military spokesman said 500 troops were on standby to deploy in Jakarta in support of police.

Police across the Philippines were also on heightened alert over fears homegrown Islamists could try to emulate the Jakarta bombings, and citizens were urged to report any suspicious behaviour or unattended baggage.

Hotels in New York were also increasing security although Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said there was no information that a Jakarta-style attack was imminent.

US President Barack Obama condemned the bombings and offered Indonesia help in the recovery effort.

“I strongly condemn the attacks that occurred this morning (Friday) in Jakarta and extend my deepest condolences to all of the victims and their loved ones,” he said.

Manchester United were due to stay at the Ritz-Carlton next week as part of an Asian tour but they cancelled the trip, denying a sell-out crowd of 100,000 the chance to see the English football giants play an Indonesia XI on Monday.

No group has claimed responsibility for the bombings, the worst in Indonesia since 2005, but suspicion inevitably fell on the Jemaah Islamiyah terror network responsible for the 2002 Bali attacks that killed 202 people.

Investigators said they found an unexploded bomb, as well as explosive chemicals and bomb-making materials in room 1808 of the Marriott, which they believe served as a control centre for the attackers.

The bombs were packed with nails, ballbearings, nuts and bolts to maximise the carnage, and appeared to be “identical” to ones previously used in JI attacks, police said.

They were also the same as bombs found in a recent raid on an Islamic boarding school in Central Java, carried out as part of the hunt for master-bombmaker Noordin Mohammed Top, leader of a JI splinter group.

Noordin is wanted for his role in the Bali attacks as well as a 2003 bombing at the Jakarta Marriott, which killed 12 people, and the 2005 truck-bombing of the Australian embassy in Jakarta.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who was re-elected in a landslide on July 8, said the attack was an act of terror that would have “wide effects on our economy, trade, tourism and image in the eyes of the world”.

Tourism operators on the Hindu-majority resort island of Bali said they feared for the lucrative tourism industry, which was just getting back to normal after the horrific attacks of 2002.

“I am afraid that the tourism sector which is now thriving in Indonesia would be affected significantly,” Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry representative for small businesses Sandiaga Uno told Anatara news agency.

“We hope that the bomb blasts would not deter foreign and domestic investors in making the investment in the country.”

Tourism is one of the biggest sources of foreign capital for Southeast Asia’s biggest economy, which has avoided recession in the global financial crisis, but needs more foreign investment to maintain its growth trajectory.

The country’s mainstream Muslim groups joined Yudhoyono and world leaders in condemning the attacks, saying they could never be justified in Islamic teachings.

Condemnation poured in from around the world including from UN chief Ban Ki-moon, and from Indonesia’s neighbours in Southeast Asia, where JI is accused of plotting to create a pan-Islamic state.

Indonesian police examine remains for clues

Continue reading »]]> At least 28 people were killed, including women and schoolgirls, and dozens wounded in a triple bombing in a Baghdad market on Monday, the deadliest attack to rock the Iraqi capital in months, security officials said.

The attackers detonated a car bomb in the Sunni district of Adhamiyah, then minutes later a suicide bomber ran into the resulting melee and blew up, according to defence and interior ministry officials.

A third explosion caused by a roadside bomb around 30 metres (yards) from the first two blasts tore through the market moments later, according to an Iraqi police officer who was on the street when the attack took place.

An interior ministry official said at least 68 people were wounded in the rush-hour Baghdad attack, which wreaked the heaviest toll in Baghdad since June 17 when 51 people were killed and 75 wounded in a car bombing.

Monday’s attack took place on Kassra street, a road lined with restaurants and tea shops popular for breakfast with Iraqi security forces, as a bus carrying young school girls drove past, according to witnesses.

“There was a huge explosion and before I went out to look another bomb went off,” said Fadel Hussein, a waiter at a teahouse near the scene.

“Heavy smoke was everywhere. There were so many bloody victims on the ground, we helped to evacuate those people to ambulances,” Hussein told AFP.

The US and Iraqi military cordoned off the area, which was littered with glass, mangled metal and scorched cars as sobbing parents desperately searched for their children.

One woman in her 40s and wearing a black abaya, the traditional black Arab dress, sat on the ground crying uncontrollably.

“I’m waiting for my husband who is inside the area looking for my son. I hope he is still alive,” she sobbed.

Witnesses told an AFP photographer that some schoolgirls in the bus had died in the blast.

Seats in the wrecked interior of the minibus were heavily stained with blood, while its exterior was riddled with fist-sized shrapnel holes. Girls’ shoes lay strewn on the blood-stained street.

Among those killed were three policemen, three women and five children, police said.

The Medical City hospital received 37 wounded people, including several women and children and two Iraqi soldiers, a medic said.

However, the US military put the toll at four killed and 34 wounded.

Meanwhile in Baquba, a restive city north of Baghdad, a female suicide bomber killed four Sunni guards belonging to Awakening councils and wounded at least 15 civilians at a checkpoint.

A doctor who examined the remains of the attacker said she was likely a 13-year-old girl.

The United Nations envoy to Iraq, Staffan de Mistura, condemned the attacks that “aimed at re-instilling fear, distrust and division among the public just as Iraq prepares itself to assume political normalcy with the upcoming provincial elections.”

On Sunday, Baghdad set January 31 as the date for long-awaited provincial elections seen by Washington as a key benchmark towards national reconciliation but also capable of stoking further conflict among Iraq’s divided communities.

The bombings also came as Sunni militias which have played a key role in driving Al-Qaeda fighters from Baghdad began receiving pay cheques from a Shiite-led government that has long eyed them with suspicion.

Up to 60 stations opened throughout the Iraqi capital to pay some 50,000 members of the US-allied Awakening Councils or Sahwas which used to receive their monthly salaries from the American military.

Despite the dramatic improvement in security in large swathes of Iraq, militants continue to launch near daily attacks , most of them targeting US and Iraqi security forces.

Baghdad has been hit by a string of bombings in the last week, most of them small roadside bombs that claimed only a handful of victims.

The US military says the capital has become much safer since the launch last year of a joint Iraqi-US security plan. Attacks average four a day, 83 percent less than in 2007.

war-news.net

Continue reading »]]> BAGHDAD — Five bomb attacks struck Baghdad on Sunday, three of them aimed at civilians who were out holiday shopping and strolling. Security sources said at least 27 people had been killed and 84 wounded.

The bombings reinforced fears among a growing number of residents that the security situation in Baghdad was deteriorating, even though over all it remained at the most stable level since the American-led invasion in 2003, according to data measured by the United States military command.

The worst of the bombings, in a bustling market of the central Karada district, seemed intended to inflict casualties on people preparing to celebrate a major holiday at the end of Ramadan, the Muslim holy month.

First, a car bomb blew up in a parking lot on Attar Street. Then as crowds gathered, a second bomb exploded, in what seemed to be an effort to kill or maim bystanders, several witnesses said.

Brig. Gen. Qassim Atta, an Iraqi military spokesman, said the attacks involved a car bomb and a roadside homemade bomb. He put the toll at 13 dead and 46 wounded.

An official at the Interior Ministry, who did not want to be identified because he was not authorized to speak to the media, gave a toll of at least 19 killed and 72 wounded.

Police officers at the scene provided a toll of at least 18 killed and 41 wounded. Conflicting tolls are common in the confusion that follows attacks in Iraq.

Ayman Saadi, a resident, said he ran away when the first bomb went off, expecting a second detonation. “We have become accustomed to these traps,” he said.

Nearby, a Karada resident who identified himself as Abbas Jarousha stood in disbelief as he received a call on his cellphone from a stranger who said that he had found Mr. Jarousha’s brother’s phone and that the brother was dead.

The blasts in Karada occurred about 7 p.m. as many people poured onto the streets after the breaking of the daytime fast observed by most Iraqis during Ramadan, which ends Monday. Ramadan is followed by Id al-Fitr, a five-day holiday during which families customarily go out strolling, and children receive gifts and parade in new clothes.

Many people were out shopping on Sunday in Karada, where vendors were selling shoes, clothes, watches and perfume. Attar Street is also home to Jabbar Abu al-Sharbat, a cafe renowned for its pomegranate and raisin juice.

Baghdad was jarred by another explosion shortly before sundown in Shurta, a neighborhood on the city’s southwestern side. A bomb placed in a parked vehicle at a market there killed 12 and wounded 35, according to the Interior Ministry official.

Mizher Abed Hanoush, a Shurta resident, said the attack took place near a Shiite house of worship, or husseiniya, now occupied by the Iraqi Army.

Mr. Hanoush said the husseiniya previously had served as the local base of the Mahdi Army militia of Moktada al-Sadr, the anti-American Shiite cleric. It was taken over by the army in the aftermath of battles this year between Iraqi and American forces and the militia in Baghdad and the south.

Mr. Hanoush echoed concerns voiced by many Iraqis in recent weeks about the fragility of the security situation in Baghdad. “The situation is turning to the worse again, I do not know why,” he said.

Earlier, an Iraqi soldier was killed and three others were wounded when their patrol hit a roadside bomb in Mansour, a neighborhood in western Baghdad. Also, a bomb inside a vehicle exploded on a main road in the Amil neighborhood, killing the driver, the Interior Ministry official said.

Holiday Bombings Kill 27 in Baghdad – NYTimes.com