Notes named hotel as target

Notes which Indonesian police found after a massive explosives and weapons seizure last month named the area around Jakarta's Marriott Hotel as a potential target.

A police official disclosed yesterday that the area was identified in notes taken from suspected members of Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), the terror group blamed for the Bali nightclub bombings which killed 202 people in October.

They were arrested with a huge cache of potassium chlorate and TNT, chemicals used in the Bali bombings, as well as detonators and weapons in a sweep of central Java east of Jakarta.

Indonesian Defence Minister Matori Abdul Jalil said earlier it was too soon to blame al Qaeda-linked JI for a powerful explosion which ripped through the five-star United States-owned Marriott at lunchtime on Tuesday, killing up to 16 people.

But Singapore's Straits Times newspaper quoted an unnamed JI operative as claiming responsibility on behalf of the organisation.

It said the operative had described the attack as a "bloody warning" to Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri not to clamp down on militants.

The message came as judges prepared to deliver their verdict today on the first of three dozen alleged JI members accused of complicity in the Bali blasts, in which three New Zealanders and 88 Australians were among those killed..

"This is a message for her and all our enemies that if they execute any of our Muslim brothers we will continue this campaign of terror in Indonesia and the region," the operative was quoted as saying.

The Marriott became a bloody inferno when a vehicle packed with explosives blew up near its front entrance.

Indonesian police chief General Da'i Bachtiar pointed to strong similarities with the Bali bombings.

"There is a large hole, there is a car chassis, etcetera".

The head of his criminal investigation department, Erwin Mappaseng, was more explicit. "The modus [operandi] and the materials used were similar - there were low explosives and high explosives, the low was black powder and the high, TNT," he said.

General Bachtiar would not say whether a suicide bomber triggered the explosion.

But he said the bomb was hidden in a Toyota Kijang which was moving at the time. The US Embassy reported that the driver was killed in the blast.

- AGENCIES