Bombings kill nine in Indonesia
Another terrorist act happened again in Indonesia. Two bombs hit Indonesian capital Jakarta on Friday. Witnesses said that the first explosion was heard at 07:40 AM coming from the JW Marriott, and two minutes after a second explosion ripped a restaurant of the Ritz Carlton Hotel, located about 500 meters from the first blast's point, filled with people who are attending breakfast meetings. Both luxurious hotels are known to be frequented by western foreigners.
Local sources said that the current blasts claimed nine lives and injured many Indonesians who work in both hotels.
It's still fresh in many Jakartans’ memories how a suicide bomber set off a high explosive bomb in front JW Marriott hotel in 2003, which caused 14 fatalities and 156 injuries. The suicide bomber was accused to have a link with Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), a splinter group of Al Qaeda in South East Asia.
Twitterer Andre Siregar was staying at the Ritz when the blast occured, he said:
He also posted a picture taken from his room at the Ritz, and another picture taken not long after the blast.
Recently re-elected President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said that the blasts were initiated by those who wish to see a post presidential election chaos, while Vice President Jusuf Kalla blamed the Police and Indonesian Intelligence Agency (BIN) for slacking and overly focused to secure the Presidential election but failed to secure other things.
Quoted by the local news portal [id] detik.com, Jusuf Kalla who's popularly known by his initial JK, said that until it's realized as an act, bombing requires plenty of preparations which take months, couldn't happen in a mere week.
BIN chief Syamsir Siregar, who's currently in the hot water admitted the agency's negligence, told Kompas [id] that they didn't pick up any clue that says that bomb blasts will be staged in Jakarta, he also add that this sort of national security breach can happen anywhere in the world even to superpower countries.
At the moment, hundreds of police and anti terrorism unit Densus 88 have been deployed to secure the premises and Jakarta is currently under Siaga 1 – highest security alert, which means that the police are still on hot pursuit of the culprits and searching if bomb threats remain imminent.
The US and Australian governments have condemned this act of terrorism and have pledged to help the Indonesian government.
1 comment
A very unfortunate event.
But let’s contrast this terrorist act with the one recently occurred in XinJiang, China for a moment.
In China, extremist Muslims killed over 100 ethnic Hans because they are sick of what they perceived as discriminations against them by the Hans.
In Indonesia, extremist Muslims killed over 8 foreign expats because they are sick of what they perceived as discriminations against them by foreigners.
In the western media, the extremist Muslims in China are labeled as “freedom fighters”, the “oppressed”, the “discriminated”, etc. The extremist Muslims in Indonesia are called simply “Terrorists”.
The western media immediately went on to examine and support the independence movement demanded by the Uighur extremists. The western media hardly ever mentions the East Timor independence movement anymore.
The main difference between the two events?
In one event most of the dead were Han Chinese, in the other event most of the dead were expats.