BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | Bali bombs 'were suicide attacks'

BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | Bali bombs 'were suicide attacks' Bali bombs 'were suicide attacks'

Suicide bombers carried out the attacks on three Bali restaurants that killed at least 26 people, a senior Indonesian anti-terror official has said.

Major General Ansyaad Mbai said the remains of their bodies were found at the scenes in the tourist areas of Jimbaran and Kuta.

He added that the attacks appeared to have been carried out by regional militant group Jemaah Islamiah (JI).

JI was blamed for the 2002 Bali bombings, which left 202 people dead.

More than 100 people were wounded in the latest attacks, 17 of them seriously.

Malaysians named

Gen Mbai said the three attackers went into the restaurants - two in Jimbaran beach resort, the third in Kuta - on Saturday evening wearing explosive vests, which they detonated.



"I have seen them. All that is left is their head and feet," he told the Associated Press news agency.

The BBC's Tim Johnston in Bali says the confirmation strengthens the assumption now being quietly voiced by many Indonesian officials that JI was responsible for these bombings as it was for the attack three years ago.

Gen Mbai said two Malaysian fugitives were suspected of masterminding the strikes - Azahari Bin Husin and Noordin Mohamed Top, who have been on Indonesia's most wanted lists since the attacks in 2002.

The two are accused of orchestrating those blasts and two others in the Indonesian capital in 2003 and 2004.

"The modus operandi of Saturday's attacks is the same as the earlier ones," said Gen Mbai, adding that the remains of backpacks had also been found at the scene of the blasts.

No group has claimed responsibility for the attacks.

However, BBC security correspondent Frank Gardner says Bali - a predominantly Hindu island popular with Western tourists - represents a soft and tempting target for Islamist extremists linked to al-Qaeda.

Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has vowed that those responsible will be caught.

"We will hunt down the perpetrators and bring them to justice."

'Thunderous boom'

On Sunday morning, behind yellow police tape, forensic scientists were scouring the bomb sites for any clue that might lead to those responsible.

Police say there were three blasts, which happened almost simultaneously just before 2000 local time (1200GMT) on Saturday.

The noise was deafening - like 1,000 fireworks going off at one time
James Hughes
UK tourist

A British tourist who was in a building next door to the restaurant that was hit in Kuta said there was a "thunderous boom" that caused all the shop's windows to blow out.

"It was just chaos," Daniel Martin told the BBC.

In Jimbaran, two outdoor beach restaurants about 100m apart were targeted.

Initial reports suggest that Indonesians bore the brunt of the attacks, but casualties also include Australian, US, Japanese and South Korean nationals.

The blasts come less than two weeks before the third anniversary of massive bomb attacks that killed 202 people - including 88 Australians.

JI, the group blamed for the 12 October 2002 bombings, is also suspected of being behind a suicide bombing at the Marriott hotel in Jakarta in 2003, and a suicide bombing at the Australian embassy last September.

The authorities had warned that militants had been planning further attacks on Western targets in Indonesia, although there had been no particular alerts over the past few days.

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