Bangkok Crimes

At least six people have been killed and 36 injured in two separate explosions at western-owned hotels in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta.

The blasts, which appeared co-ordinated, occuring nearly simultaneously, happened at the JW Marriott and the Ritz-Carlton hotels in central Jakarta.

South Jakarta Police Chief Firman Santyabudi confirmed the explosions had occured at both the luxury hotels in the upmarket neighbourhood.

“There were explosions heard from two separate places, one the JW Marriott, the other in the Ritz Carlton. We are still trying to check because right now we are still helping the victims,” he said.

A hospital official says 36 wounded in the blasts, including 11 foreigners, one who has been confirmed as being a New Zealander. One hospital emergency room said it was already treating 15 people.

The blasts blew out windows and scattered debris and glass across the street, after ripping the facade off the Ritz Hotel.

Witnesses at the scene told local television that the injured, including Indonesians and foreigners, were seen being taken away in ambulances.

“Some windows of the Ritz-Carlton building have been shattered, mostly on the lower section. I’m looking at it from my office,” Myra Junor, who works at a nearby building told Reuters.

A man jogging by the hotels said he first heard a loud explosion at the Marriott. Five minutes later, a bomb followed at the Ritz.

A Ritz Carlton employee said the Manchester United soccer team had been due to stay at the hotel ahead of an exhibition game in Indonesia early next week.

There have not been any major bomb blasts in Indonesia for several years, and this month the country’s presidential election passed off peacefully.

The Marriott hotel was attacked in 2003, when a car bomb killed 12 people. Southeast Asian terror network Jemaah Islamiyah was blamed in that blast.

That coincided with a period when Islamists militants carried out numerous attacks, including bombings in Bali in 2002 which killed 202 people.

KC: AFP now reporting there have been seven deaths. The fact that these attacks were coordinated suggests that they were orchestrated by a highly organised group. JI have certainly been fairly quite for some time and if they were behind these latest bombs fears of further attacks in Indonesia and the wider region will resurface. Indonesia was already being described by some optimistic analysts as a success story in the war on terror where counter-terrorism initiatives, such as anti-terror unit Delta 88, a joint US/Indonesian task force, were considered one key reason for a lack of terrorist bombs since 2003. Clearly the Indonesian context will have to be re-evaluated in the aftermath of these attacks.