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Terrorist attacks rekindle Indonesians’ anxieties (AP)

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AFP/File – An Indonesian police image of Malaysian-born extremist Noordin Mohammed Top. Indonesian police have confirmed …

By BEN STOCKING, Associated Press Writer Ben Stocking, Associated Press Writer

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1 min ago

JAKARTA, Indonesia – The terrorist attacks that struck two luxury hotels in the capital have shaken ordinary Indonesians who had grown more confident after waves of arrests had left the nation’s al-Qaida-linked militant network seriously weakened.

Coming four years after the country’s last serious terrorist attack, Friday’s twin suicide bombings at the J.W. Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotels in Jakarta unleashed a new wave of anxiety in the world’s largest Muslim-majority country.

“I am shocked by these bombings,” Razif Harahap, 45, a Jakarta graduate student, said Sunday. “The same people who carried out these attacks could launch another one, because the mastermind is still at large. We have to be careful.”

The latest attacks killed seven, plus the two attackers, and wounded 50, many of them foreigners.

Police have yet to name a suspect, but the method, target and type of bombs used in the attacks immediately raised suspicions of involvement by the Jemaah Islamiyah terrorist group and Noordin M. Top, a fugitive Malaysian who heads a particularly violent offshoot of the network.

Indonesia’s national police spokesman, Maj. Gen. Nanan Sukarna, confirmed Sunday that remnants of the bombs found outside the hotels had circuits that were “identical” to those in explosives that Jemaah Islamiyah used in previous attacks in Bali.

Sukarna also said police were looking into connections between Friday’s bombing and explosives discovered last week in the Cilacap region of Central Java which were buried in a garden at the house of Noordin’s father-in-law, who is also at large.

Nevertheless, police are still considering other suspects, Sukarna told reporters.

The official Antara news agency said Sunday that the government was intensifying efforts to find Noordin and had enlisted Malaysian authorities’ help. Among other steps, it said, investigators were attempting to trace the network’s finances, seeking links to Friday’s blasts.

Investigators have been examining body parts and other forensic evidence in an attempt to identify the two bombers, one of whom is believed to be Indonesian.

They were decapitated in the explosions, and confirming their identity could help determine if they had links to Noordin.

Officials have identified five of the dead — three Australians, one New Zealander and one Indonesian. The Health Ministry initially reported the death of a Singaporean, but police said they were unable to confirm that.

Among the dead was Craig Senger, the first Australian government official to be killed in a terrorist attack, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said Sunday.

Senger worked as a Trade Commission officer at the embassy in Jakarta.

Officials said 17 foreigners were among the wounded, including eight Americans and citizens of Australia, Britain, Canada, Hong Kong, India, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway and South Korea.

Australia on Sunday updated its travel advisory for Indonesia, citing the possibility of further violence. The government advised citizens to “reconsider” trips to Indonesia, including Bali, “due to the very high threat of terrorist attack.”

Indonesian television stations showed interviews with victims, including Yusuf Purnomo, a waiter at a restaurant in the Ritz-Carlton who suffered a shrapnel wound to his right arm.

Speaking in a soft voice to Metro TV from his hospital bed, Purnomo said he considered himself lucky because he would eventually get back on his feet.

“My body is intact, but what about the victims who lost their limbs and can’t work anymore?” he said.

Jemaah Islamiyah rose to prominence after the 2002 nightclub bombings in the beach resort of Bali that killed 202 people, most of them foreigners.

It staged attacks in Indonesia in each of the next three years: a 2003 car bombing outside the J.W. Marriott hotel, a 2004 truck bombing outside the Australian Embassy, and triple suicide bombings on Bali restaurants by attackers carrying bombs in backpacks in 2005.

After the government launched a massive anti-terrorism campaign, no major attacks had been reported since then — until Friday’s explosions.

While the new attacks rekindled old anxieties, Indonesians interviewed Sunday said they did not believe the bombings signaled a resurgence by the militants, who want to establish an Islamic state in the region.

Indonesia has the world’s largest Muslim population, but the Islamist extremists enjoy little support among its largely moderate public.

The terrorists do not have the money or backing to launch another major attack soon, said Agus Triharso, 40, a motorbike taxi driver in Jakarta.

“Noordin Top and his friends have support from just a few hard-line Muslims,” Triharso said. “As Muslims, we have to stop them.”

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admin @ July 19, 2009

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