By Irwan Firdaus
The Associated Press
Bali, Indonesia – Suicide bombers targeted the tropical resort of Bali with coordinated attacks that devastated three crowded restaurants, killing at least 25 people, an anti-terrorism official said today.
Maj. Gen. Ansyaad Mbai said that the three attackers went into the restaurants Saturday night wearing explosive vests. The remains of their bodies were found at the scenes, he said.
“I have seen them. All that is left is their head and feet,” he told The Associated Press. “By the evidence we can conclude the bombers were carrying the explosives around the waists.”
The near-simultaneous blasts at two seafood cafes on Jimbaran beach and a three-story noodle and steakhouse in downtown Kuta came a month after the president warned of possible terrorist attacks. Two Americans were among the 101 people wounded.
Mbai said two Malaysian fugitives were suspected of masterminding the strikes.
The alleged key members of the al-Qaeda-linked Jemaah Islamiyah terror group were accused of orchestrating the 2002 Bali nightclub bombings that killed 202 people, most of them foreigners, and two others in the Indonesian capital in 2003 and 2004. Those attacks also involved suicide bombers.
“The modus operandi of Saturday’s attacks is the same as the earlier ones,” said Mbai, naming fugitives Azahari bin Husin and Noordin Mohamed Top as the masterminds.
“We will hunt down the perpetrators and bring them to justice,” President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said.
Western and Indonesian intelligence agencies have warned repeatedly that Jemaah Islamiyah was plotting more attacks. Last month, Yudhoyono said he was especially worried it was about to strike.
“I received information at the time that terrorists were planning an action in Jakarta and that explosives were ready,” he said Saturday.
Vice President Yusuf Kalla told the British Broadcasting Corp. that it was too soon to identify those responsible.
Dozens of people, most of them Indonesian, waited in tears outside the morgue in Sanglah Hospital, near the island’s capital Denpasar, for news of friends and relatives missing since the attacks.
