Thirteen dead as bomb rocks Indonesia hotel

By MONIQUE DEVEREUX, NATASHA HARRIS and AGENCIES

UPDATED - Thirteen people are dead and a New Zealander was one of 150 injured after a car bomb ripped through the basement of a luxury Jakarta hotel.

Ten Fonterra staff, including the New Zealander, suffered minor injuries when the bomb exploded at 12.30 pm (5.30pm NZT) during the city's busy lunch hour.

The blast left bodies on the streets and cars burning outside.

The J.W. Marriott Hotel is in the heart of Jakarta's business centre and close to the diplomatic area of Menteng, home to dozens of Western embassies and consuls, including the US ambassador.

Five of the Fonterra staff at a training conference were from New Zealand and the others had come from Fonterra offices across Asia.

The injured New Zealand man suffered a flash burn to the back of his head.

The others injured suffered only cuts and bruises. None was admitted to hospital.

The Fonterra conference was one of the main events on at the hotel.

Police initially said the explosion came from the basement and was a bomb, possibly detonated by a suicide bomber.

Later, they said the blast was caused by a bomb hidden in a multi-purpose, Indonesian-assembled Kijang van in the basement.

Indonesian police chief General Da'i Bachtiar would not say whether it was a suicide bombing.

"There were human body parts around the vehicle, but it cannot be ascertained as to whether they belonged to a perpetrator or to victims," he said.

Police reported that an Australian, an American, a Dutchman and a Malaysian were among those killed.

A spokeswoman for the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the ministry was considering the need for issuing a warning against travel to Jakarta.

It was already considered a "high-risk" destination.

However, Australians were immediately warned to stay away from central Jakarta.

A spokesman for Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said officials were working with the local authorities to get information about the extent of the blast and identify any Australians who might have been in the vicinity.

The consul at the New Zealand Embassy, Jeff Mathews, said the Fonterra staff were extremely lucky to escape serious injuries.

Mr Mathews and other embassy staff "heard and felt" the blast from their offices about a kilometre away from the bomb site.

Former New Zealand journalist Cameron Bates, who works for the Jakarta Post newspaper, heard at least one explosion.

He arrived at the Marriott about an hour after the blast, when smoke was still rising and rubble and debris was scattered across the road.

Bates spoke to an Australian man who was staying on the seventh floor of the hotel.

"He was very confused. He had just got out of the shower and was standing there naked when the blast blew him across the room. He got dressed and went down to the scene to help others."

The nearest hospital, the Metropolitan Medical Centre (MMC), was in a state of "orderly chaos", said Bates.

A list of the injured was pinned up on the wall outside. They included Indonesians, Russians and Americans.

A New Zealand police superintendent at the embassy went to the Marriott to look for New Zealanders and help emergency services.

Embassy staff started phoning the 600 New Zealanders living in Jakarta who are registered with the embassy to ensure they were safe.

They also tried to find out whether any other New Zealanders were near the hotel at the time.

An embassy spokesman said it was not known how many New Zealanders were holidaying in Jakarta, as people on short-term stays did not usually contact the NZ mission.

The explosion comes as the trial of Amrozi, an Islamic militant accused of being behind last year's Bali bombings which killed 202 people, draws to a close.

Indonesian Defence Minister Matori Abdul Jalil said the blast was the work of terrorists, although he declined to blame the Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) group, which is blamed for the Bali attack.

"I cannot say it is the JI, but what is clear is that the arrests of two or three JI members does not mean terrorism has ended," he said.

The United States said last week that Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network was planning suicide hijackings and bombings in the US and abroad.

Terrorism expert Rohan Gunaratna said the timing of the bombing was "most significant", given its proximity to the Amrozi verdict and the start of the trial of alleged JI leader Abu Bakar Bashir in Jakarta.

"The Bali trial is reaching a very critical phase. Islamist groups are very angry about the prosecution of these people and certainly this is their way of expressing anger.

"They want to show their power, they want to retaliate. The bombing has the hallmarks of JI."

Gunaratna, a fellow at the Singapore-based Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies who has written extensively about al-Qaeda, said the attack proved that JI was "very much intact in Indonesia" and a threat to the region.

"JI will strike wherever there is the opportunity. They will strike other countries if the law enforcement and intelligence agencies in those countries are complacent."

Clive Williams, director of terrorism studies at the Australian National University, said the attack was not unexpected.

"I thought there would be some reaction to the Bali trials, and it just shows that the assessments of JI having a significantly greater capability than those arrested so far are correct.

"It foreshadows that further attacks are likely. I think they've got the capability to strike elsewhere in the region, particularly, say, in Thailand, the Philippines, Malaysia and possibly Singapore."

Australian tourists were the main victims of the Bali attack, but Mr Williams said he thought it unlikely that JI, whose aim is the creation of a regional Islamic state, had the capacity to strike within Australia itself.

The Marriott opened in September 2001 and has 33 floors and 333 rooms.

It is popular with foreign tourists, businessmen and politicians, and the US Embassy held its July 4 independence celebrations there last month.