Suicide bombers behind Jakarta Marriott, Ritz-Carlton bombings were hotel guests, say police
BY Brian Kates
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Updated Friday, July 17th 2009, 6:17 PM
Alangkara/AP Police officers inspect the damage after an explosion went off at Marriott hotel in Jakarta, Indonesia.
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Authorities believe suicide bombers were guests in one of the two Jakarta, Indonesia, hotels they attacked early Friday, killing at least nine people and injuring at least 60 more. Investigators said the terrorists were believed to have checked into the JW Marriott Hotel on Wednesday before carrying out deadly bombings there and at the adjacent Ritz-Carlton on Friday morning. Indonesian authorities detained several people for questioning and sent evidence to labs for forensic testing.
No one claimed credit for the bombings at the U.S.-headquartered hotels, but counter-terrorism police suspected the regional terror network Jemaah Islamiyah. The bombs, triggered on Islam's holy day, tore through the hotels in central Jakarta at about 8 a.m. local time, showering victims with shards of glass and leaving both hotels in smoking ruins. "Based on the evidence at the scene we found that there were two suicide bombers," national police chief Bambang Hendarso Danuri said.
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono condemned the bombings as a "terrorist attack." The U.S. State Department said several American citizens are among the injured. None was immediately identified. "The State Department is working to help American citizens injured in the blasts," Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said. "The attacks reflect the viciousness of violent extremists, and remind us that the threat of terrorism remains very real." "The most damaged areas that we looked at, where the bodies were, was a lounge area in the Marriott near the lobby," said presidential spokesman Dino Patti Djalal. "That seems to be the epicenter of the bomb." "This is a blow to us, but I don't have any doubts that we will be able to uncover and find out the perpetrators," Djalal added.
Police were studying closed-circuit television footage from the Ritz-Carlton of a man wearing a baseball cap and pulling a small suitcase behind him as he entered the hotel lobby just minutes before the bomb went off. One hospital reported that there were 16 foreigners wounded in the blast, Antara said. The victims were from the U.S. Italy, South Korea, Japan, Norway, Netherlands, India, Australia and Britain. The bombs are believed to have been detonated inside the hotel restaurants, both of which are normally busy with diplomats and businessmen sitting down to power breakfasts. Both bombs were made in a room at Marriott that officials described as the "control center" of the attack. "The bombs which exploded at the JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton were similar and were transported from JW Marriott room number 1808," Danuri said. "There was one unexploded bomb left [in the room] which was dismantled."
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