Police release sketch of Jakarta bombing suspect

JAKARTA - Indonesian police have released a sketch of a suspect in the bombing of a US-run luxury hotel in Jakarta.

Tuesday's suicide car bomb attack, two days before the first Bali bomb trial verdict and after a spate of global terror warnings, killed 10 people and wounded 150 at Jakarta's five-star JW Marriott Hotel. Police lowered the death toll from 16.

One foreigner, a Dutch Rabobank executive, was among those killed. Singaporeans, Americans, Australians and several New Zealanders were among the wounded in the attack.

The Jemaah Islamiah militant Muslim organisation, widely blamed for the Bali attack and linked to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network, had claimed responsibility for the latest blast, Singapore's Straits Times reported.

Erwin Mappaseng, head of the criminal investigation department, released composite sketches of a man who bought the car into which a deadly cocktail of black powder and TNT wedged between cans filled with petrol was packed. A police caption on one sketch described the man as a suspected bomber.

"On the detonation method, it was known that the bomb was triggered by a mobile phone," he told an evening news conference. "We have not determined whether JI was involved."

The methods, materials and the detonations all resembled the bombs that destroyed Bali nightclubs and a bomb in Jakarta aimed at the Philippine ambassador in August 2000, he said.

The Bali bombs were composed mainly of TNT and potassium chlorate -- a fertilizer compound. Those blasts, the largest of which was a massive car bomb, killed 202 people last October, many of them Australian revelers.

Jakarta holds JI responsible for the Bali bombings.

Indonesian and Australian forensic officers picked through debris in the charred lobby. The blast was believed to have been triggered by a suicide bomber and a severed head was recovered, but police did not say if the sketch was of a suicide bomber.

National police chief Da'i Bachtiar told reporters the head could be that of the suicide bomber.

The sketches of the man described as the buyer of the car showed a clean-shaven young man with broad lips. The car was sold two weeks ago to a buyer who gave no address.

Security had been boosted in central Jakarta after police found the Marriott area on a list of potential targets last month when they arrested nine members of JI and found a huge cache of weapons and explosives on Java island, officials said.

"There was information that explosive materials had entered Jakarta, and ... information on strategic areas," Jakarta police spokesman Prasetyo told a news conference, referring to the raids in Java last month that netted 910kg of potassium chlorate, 1200 detonators and suspected JI members.

"We had anticipated it, including the Marriott Hotel where we had increased security," said Prasetyo. "But the problem is the car ... blew up before it entered the secure parking area."

Security Minister Yudhoyono unveiled a crackdown, including checks on vehicles before they neared building doors.

A key suspect on trial for the Bali bombings welcomed the blast. "I am happy. Thanks be to God, even more so if those who did it are Muslims," Imam Samudra said as he left court in Bali.

"Go to hell Australia," he shouted in broken English.

Officials were cautious about linking JI to the blast, even as an unprecedented JI claim of responsibility appeared.

The Straits Times said a self-proclaimed JI operative made contact just hours after the blast and claimed responsibility.

The daily's Jakarta correspondent said the operative described the attack as a "bloody warning" to the Indonesian president not to clamp down on militants. The Bali suspects face the death penalty.

Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said he was worried about more violence within days in Indonesia.

"I think the world should know that what we are facing is an international terrorist organisation, it is not a domestic terrorist cell," Chief Security Minister Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said.

US President George W Bush, in a telephone call to Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri on Wednesday, offered Indonesia any help the United States could provide in tracking down those who bombed the Jakarta hotel.

"The president emphasised that the United States stands with the people of Indonesia in their fight against terrorism, and he offered any and all assistance in bringing those responsible for the terrorist attack to justice," said White House spokesman Scott McClellan.

- REUTERS