from today's Canberra Times :
"...Labor called off plans to campaign today as a mark of respect,..."
TARGET AUSTRALIA - At least 11 dead
Jakarta
Friday, 10 September 2004
The man suspected of being the Bali bomb-maker may be behind the attack on Australia's embassy in Jakarta yesterday, which killed up to 11 people and wounded more than 160.
Azahari Husin, a Malaysian British- trained engineer who has eluded capture for nearly three years, is one of Asia's most-wanted men and a member of the al-Qaeda-allied Jemaah Islamiyah terror group. He has been linked to numerous bombings in Indonesia, including the Bali attack that killed 202 people in 2002.
Reports last night said Husin studied engineering in Australia for four years at Adelaide University in the late 1980s, when many Malay students were drawn to the cause of political Islam under the influence of the brewing Iranian revolution.
Australian embassy staff escaped relatively unscathed in the suspected suicide car-bomb attack, which ripped apart the heavily-fortified gates of the mission, shattered thousands of windows in surrounding buildings, and left a deep crater in the road outside.
Those killed were mainly Indonesians, including police and embassy security staff, cut down in the road by the explosion just 4m from the front gates of the compound.
Both Prime Minister John Howard and Opposition Leader Mark Latham condemned the attack as election campaigning came to a halt.
"I, of course, condemn this bomb attack unconditionally," Mr Howard told a press conference convened less than two hours after the blast.
Mr Howard said recently strengthened security at the embassy - at a cost of $1.25million - had perhaps been responsible for avoiding the loss of any Australian lives.
The massive blast, heard up to 15km away, tore the glass fronts off nearby office towers and showered flying glass into the embassy building, causing minor injuries among mission staff.
"I thought it was an earthquake, but it was a bomb," said Yuni Sasi, 27, as she sat sobbing in the street next to an injured co-worker from a nearby office.
A police post outside the embassy gates was completely destroyed, killing at least three officers.
Afterwards, the road was littered with bloodied corpses, charred debris, glass and the twisted wreckage of motorcycles, cars and a police truck, destroyed as it sat parked outside the embassy gates.
Indonesian police blamed terrorists for the car-bomb attack, which occurred at 10.15am local time. Experts said the explosion was almost certainly the work of a suicide bomber, while witnesses reported a small van hitting a road marker in front of the embassy just before the blast. Suspicions fell immediately on Husin.
"It is clearly a terrorist attack, it was outside the Australian embassy, you would have to conclude that it was directed towards Australia," Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said, before leaving for Jakarta with federal police and ASIO officers. While saying it was too early to say who was responsible for the attack, MrDowner agreed Jemaah Islamiyah was a suspect. Australia only last week followed the US in upgrading travel warnings to Indonesia.
"We had some advice a few days ago of a possible terrorist attack in Jakarta focusing on Western-style hotels ... but we didn't have any information of a specific attack on the Australian embassy," Mr Downer said.
Labor called off plans to campaign today as a mark of respect, although the attack is likely to make it harder for Opposition Leader Mark Latham to have any significant impact on the electorate. Mr Latham said the bombers must be hunted down.
"The terrorists responsible for this attack are evil and barbaric and must be dealt with as harshly as possible," he told reporters in Cairns.
Mr Howard said although no Australians were killed or seriously injured, save for a few minor injuries, a handful of locally-engaged staff had not been accounted for yesterday afternoon.
Australian embassy media officer Elizabeth O'Neill said she felt as if the wind had been pushed out of her lungs by the explosion.
"[It was an] enormous bomb, the enormity of the crater, the police truck outside has been blown to bits, it's like the wind has been pushed out of you, because the force of the bomb has a reaction on your lungs," MsO'Neill said. "All the glass shattered and we were evacuated."
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