New Zealand pledges support to Jakarta blast investigation

1.00pm

New Zealand has offered police forensic support to Indonesia in the wake of the blast that killed at least nine people outside the Australian embassy in Jakarta.

Prime Minister Helen Clark said the offer was available to Indonesia if the country wanted help with the investigation.

Helen Clark said there was no evidence of any New Zealanders being near the scene of the blast.

"There are 502 Kiwis registered with the embassy living in the Jakarta area, and last night the networks were being activated to contact them," she said.

"We urge any New Zealander going there to observe a very high level of security awareness."

Helen Clark stopped short of saying New Zealanders living in Indonesia should get out.

Australia had also not advised its residents to leave, but rather to defer any non-essential travel.

Helen Clark said New Zealand was a significant contributor towards combating terrorism and the latest blast reinforced the fact there were serious terrorist issues being faced.

While the blasts came close to Australian, US and Indonesian election times, it was difficult to know which event may have motivated the killers, she said.

The blast, which also injured close to 200 people, was about 2km from the New Zealand embassy and a Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman yesterday said it had rattled the building's windows.

Indonesia, the world's fourth most populous nation, has been hit by sporadic bomb attacks in recent years, including blasts in Bali in October 2002 that killed 202 people, including three New Zealanders, and at a luxury Jakarta hotel in August 2003 that killed 12.

New Zealand journalist Chris Holm, who is working in Jakarta, was on the scene shortly after the blast and described the scene as "organised chaos".

The Australian embassy itself had a bomb-proof coating on the glass that made sure it didn't shatter, but other buildings in the vicinity had broken windows as high as 13 storeys up, he told National Radio.

- NZPA