Australian girl critically wounded in Jakarta bombing

8.00am

A five-year old Australian girl is in a critical condition after being caught in yesterday's bomb blast outside the Australian embassy in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta.

Australian foreign minister Alexander Downer said last night the girl, with her Indonesian mother, was going to the embassy to pick up a new Australian passport when the blast occurred mid-morning local time (3pm NZT).

The girl's mother was one of nine people killed in the explosion.

The child was last night in intensive care at a Jakarta hospital.

"Her condition is critical but stable," Mr Downer said.

"She became an Australian citizen on September 1 and I understand was going to the Australian embassy to collect her first passport."

The child's Australia father was flying to Jakarta from Australia last night.

Mr Downer arrived in Jakarta last night with Australian Federal police commissioner Mick Keelty and ASIO director-general Denis Richardson.

Mr Downer will tour the blast site today and hold talks with senior Indonesian officials, including president Megawati Sukarnoputri, who visited the embassy yesterday afternoon with Australian ambassador David Ritchie.

"We are here to express our compassion to the Indonesian families who have lost their loved ones in this attack on the Australian embassy," Mr Downer said.

"This brutal and the cruel, callous attack has led to the deaths of a number of Indonesians."

Mr Downer said nine Indonesians had died in the blast, including at least two embassy security guards, while 36 had been seriously injured and another 115 suffered lighter wounds.

Other reports put the number of injured at up to 180.

"We appreciate very much as Australians that some Indonesians lost their lives at a time when they were providing protection to Australians at the Australian embassy, and we'll remember that," Mr Downer said.

"We will, with our federal police, provide every support to the Indonesian government and Indonesian officials to help track down those people who were responsible for this act of murder."

Mr Keelty said the attack was likely the handiwork of Jemaah Islamiah master bombmaker Azahari Husin and financier Noor Din Mohamad Top.

"Whilst ever Azahari Husin and Noor Din Mohamad Top remain at large, they remain the top priority for all of the work that's been done here in the region," he said.

"What we need to do is to capture them."

Mr Keelty said the bomb was likely to have been delivered in a car and appeared to be a similar explosive to those used in the Bali attacks and last year's suicide bombing of the Marriott hotel in Jakarta.

"There is some early forensic evidence to say that there are some fragments similar to the fragments that were found at the Marriott bombing," he said.

"It's too early to say, but it appears to be the same sort of bombs, like the ammonium nitrate bombs, that were used in the earlier bombings."

Mr Downer said there was no information that the attack was linked to upcoming elections in either Indonesia or Australia.

- AAP

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