Blasts rock Bali's tourist area
October 1, 2005 - 11:57PM
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Explosions rocked the Indonesian tourist island of Bali tonight, leaving dozens wounded and at least eight people dead, witnesses and local media reports said.
Witnesses said they saw body parts, including a severed head and a leg and hospitals filled with injured. Agence France-Presse said at least eight people including four foreigners were killed.
Police locked down central Kuta after at least one explosion ripped through the main square at about 8.15pm and up to four other blasts tore through the popular tourist strip of Jimbaran Bay, which is lined with restaurants and shops.
Bali police chief general Made Mangu Pastika arrived on the scene a short time ago to tour the blast area, centred around Raja's bar and restaurant.
Pastika refused to say whether the explosions were the result of another terrorist strike on the popular holiday island.
The sister of convicted drug smuggler Schapelle Corby told AAP that most of the injured had been taken to Graha Asih Hospital, near Kuta.
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At least three to four people had died there as she watched, Mercedes Corby said, while between 30 and 40 others had been injured.
Police had not confirmed any deaths or injuries tonight.
But the area around the blasts sites had been cordoned off in both Kuta and Jimbaran and witnesses said the blasts had blown out shop windows up to 50 metres away.
Authorities said several blast victims were tonight being moved to Sanglah Hospital in Denpasar, where the Australian government built a specialist burns unit following the 2002 attacks, blamed on al-Qaeda-linked terror organisation Jemaah Islamiah.
Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono was heading to the island, his spokesman said.
``The president strongly condemns this criminal act. At this moment, the president is at the airport (in Jakarta),'' spokesman Andi Mallarangeng told El Shinta radio.
Yudhoyono warned in late August that terrorists were likely to launch an attack in Indonesia in the next two months during what has become known in the country as "bomb season" owing to a series of attacks that has occurred around this time over the past three years.
The attack in Bali in October 2002 left some 202 people dead, mostly foreign tourists. Bomb attacks on the J.W. Marriott Hotel in Jakarta in August 2003 left 12 dead, and an attack outside the Australian embassy in September 2004 killed 11 and injured some 180.
Police have continued to search for two Malaysian fugitives accused of being behind the attacks, Azahari and Noordin, who are also believed to be senior members of the Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) regional terror group.
JI has been linked to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda terror network.
Although JI members have been involved in several deadly bombings in Indonesia, authorities have not officially outlawed the organisation which many Muslim leaders claim does not exist.
AAP, AFP, Reuters
October 1, 2005 - 11:57PM
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Explosions rocked the Indonesian tourist island of Bali tonight, leaving dozens wounded and at least eight people dead, witnesses and local media reports said.
Witnesses said they saw body parts, including a severed head and a leg and hospitals filled with injured. Agence France-Presse said at least eight people including four foreigners were killed.
Police locked down central Kuta after at least one explosion ripped through the main square at about 8.15pm and up to four other blasts tore through the popular tourist strip of Jimbaran Bay, which is lined with restaurants and shops.
Bali police chief general Made Mangu Pastika arrived on the scene a short time ago to tour the blast area, centred around Raja's bar and restaurant.
Pastika refused to say whether the explosions were the result of another terrorist strike on the popular holiday island.
The sister of convicted drug smuggler Schapelle Corby told AAP that most of the injured had been taken to Graha Asih Hospital, near Kuta.
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At least three to four people had died there as she watched, Mercedes Corby said, while between 30 and 40 others had been injured.
Police had not confirmed any deaths or injuries tonight.
But the area around the blasts sites had been cordoned off in both Kuta and Jimbaran and witnesses said the blasts had blown out shop windows up to 50 metres away.
Authorities said several blast victims were tonight being moved to Sanglah Hospital in Denpasar, where the Australian government built a specialist burns unit following the 2002 attacks, blamed on al-Qaeda-linked terror organisation Jemaah Islamiah.
Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono was heading to the island, his spokesman said.
``The president strongly condemns this criminal act. At this moment, the president is at the airport (in Jakarta),'' spokesman Andi Mallarangeng told El Shinta radio.
Yudhoyono warned in late August that terrorists were likely to launch an attack in Indonesia in the next two months during what has become known in the country as "bomb season" owing to a series of attacks that has occurred around this time over the past three years.
The attack in Bali in October 2002 left some 202 people dead, mostly foreign tourists. Bomb attacks on the J.W. Marriott Hotel in Jakarta in August 2003 left 12 dead, and an attack outside the Australian embassy in September 2004 killed 11 and injured some 180.
Police have continued to search for two Malaysian fugitives accused of being behind the attacks, Azahari and Noordin, who are also believed to be senior members of the Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) regional terror group.
JI has been linked to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda terror network.
Although JI members have been involved in several deadly bombings in Indonesia, authorities have not officially outlawed the organisation which many Muslim leaders claim does not exist.
AAP, AFP, Reuters