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Indonesian Car Bomb Leaves More Than 180 Dead, 130 Injured
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Indonesian firefighters spray water on charred bodies and twisted wreckage
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JAKARTA
, October 13 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - The massive explosion
that left at least 180 people dead on the Indonesian resort
island
of
Bali
was caused by a car bomb, the national police spokesman said Sunday.
"Car
bomb, once again I repeat, car bomb," Saleh Saaf told a press
conference here when asked about the cause of Saturday night's blast,
reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).
"The bomb was in a parked car... a car which we can no longer
identify because it has been blown to bits," Saaf said.
Saaf
said the bomb was certainly a "high explosive" because of
the deep large pit it had left on the road and the widespread
devastation it caused.
He
said the dead and injured came from 17 locations around the bomb
blast, which ripped through two packed bars in the popular Kuta
tourist district.
Indonesian
President Megawati Sukarnoputri said Sunday 182 people had been
confirmed killed and least 132 more injured in the attack, while
others were still unaccounted for.
Megawati
told a hastily convened press conference at her residence here she
would leave immediately for the resort island, taking with her armed
forces chief General Endriartono Sutarto and Foreign Minister Hassan
Wirayudha, among others.
"After
this (press conference) I, the foreign minister, and three ministers
will soon leave for
Bali
," Megawati told a press conference.
Megawati
then left for the Halim Perdanakusumah military airbase for the
half-hour flight to
Bali
.
Indonesian
newspaper the Jakarta Post said that
Bali
police and the local military were hunting for people who were
suspected of causing the blasts.
"We
have our leads (regarding the suspects) and we are now after
them," Bali Police spokesman Adj. Sr. Comr. Suyatmo said.
"We
have deployed all our personnel and they are all combing
Bali
to look for more possible explosives," said Suyatmo.
"This
is unbelievable,
Bali
has always been the safest place," a German diplomat told The
Jakarta Post at
Sanglah
Hospital
.
Several
diplomats from the Australian, Malaysian, and German consulates
general on the island visited the hospital following reports that many
of the victims were foreigners, mostly Australians, reported the Post.
Meanwhile,
Australian Prime Minister John Howard on Sunday said he feared many
Australians were killed in the
Bali
nightclub blast but vowed the attack would not weaken his country's
support for the war on terror.
Howard
described the explosion that killed at least 182 people on the
Indonesian resort island overnight as "barbaric, wicked and
cowardly".
He said on all available evidence to the federal government the
bombing was clearly a terrorist attack and the war against terrorism
must continue, reported AFP.
"The
indiscriminate, brutal and despicable way in which lives have been
taken away on this occasion by an act of barbarity will I know deeply
shock all Australians," Howard told reporters.
"The
war against terrorism must go on with unrelenting vigor and an
unconditional commitment."
Howard
said while the Australian death toll was not known, the nation should
prepare for a high itself for significant Australian deaths.
"There
are many Australians unaccounted for, many," he said. "We
must therefore prepare ourselves as a nation for the possibility of a
significant number of Australian deaths."
Howard
said the government's national security committee on Monday to review
plans in place to protect Australian borders from a possible terrorist
attack.
But
he warned
Australia
was not immune and was as much a target as any other western country.
"People
should get out of their minds that it can't happen here; it can, and
it has happened to our own on our doorstep," Howard told
reporters. "As a result of this, we will review everything
again.
Federal
opposition leader Simon Crean said those responsible must be hunted
down.
"If
these are terrorist acts then in the same way as the international
coalition was formed in response to September 11, so too does that
coalition need to be formed to respond to this initiative," he
said.
Howard
said Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri had assured him she
would pursue those responsible for the attack. He said
while
Indonesia
had to combat terrorism within its own borders,
Australia
would offer support in hunting those responsible.
On
Sunday, a medical volunteer said that about 75 percent of the people
admitted to a
Bali
hospital with injuries are Australian, Christine Foster, a medical
volunteer said Sunday.
Foster,
a Westerner living on
Bali
who went to help the victims at Sanglah hospital in Denpasar, some 15
kilometers (nine miles) north of the bomb site, told BBC television
that there were many other people from "all over the world".
Foster
listed the nationalities of the injured victims as Swiss, German,
Swedish, American, British and Italian.
Describing
the injuries, Foster said: "There's a lot of shrapnel. People are
having things sewn up. There are some serious head injuries."
The
bombing came just weeks after the
United States
reopened its diplomatic missions in
Indonesia
following a shutdown over the September 11 anniversary caused by fears
of new attacks by the al-Qaeda network.
Indonesia
has the highest Muslim population in the world. Islam considers all
life forms as sacred. However, the sanctity of human life is accorded
a special place. The first and the foremost basic right of a human
being is the right to live. Such is the value of a single human life,
that the Qur’an equates the taking of even one human life unjustly,
with killing all of humanity.
In
a previous fatwa, Dr. Muzammil Siddiqi, former President of the
Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), said that “Intolerance is
on the increase in the world today, causing death, genocide, violence,
religious persecution as well as confrontations on different levels.
“Some
times it is racial and ethnic, some times it is religious and
ideological, other times it is political and social. In every
situation it is evil and painful.
“Tolerance
is a basic principle of Islam. It is a religious moral duty. It does
not mean "concession, condescension or indulgence." It does
not mean lack of principles, or lack of seriousness about one's
principles.
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