JAKARTA,
September 23 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - As a further sign to
the increasing public anger against U.S. foreign policy, a grenade
exploded inside a vehicle during an attempted attack on a U.S. embassy
residence in the Indonesian capital Jakarta on Monday, September 23,
killing one of the assailants, while a bomb placed under a van exploded
near a branch of the U.S. fast food chain McDonald's outside the
Lebanese capital overnight, without causing injury.
In
Jakarta, National Police Chief General Da'i Bachtiar said a man sitting
in the front passenger seat of the van was killed and the driver was
injured in the blast, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.
The
slightly injured driver of the van was arrested, but two other
passengers fled the scene in an upscale district near the city center.
The
incident comes just one week after U.S. diplomatic missions in Indonesia
reopened following a six-day shutdown because of fears the Al-Qaeda
network was planning truck bomb attacks against U.S. missions in
Southeast Asia.
Bachtiar
said the driver of the van, an Ambonese identified as Yusuf, had told
police that he and his partners had targeted the U.S. residence, located
on Teluk Betung Street in central Jakarta, AFP said.
Earlier
reports on Monday said Yusuf had told police that they had been planning
to collect a debt at a house nearby.
"The
[hand] grenade blew up inside the car carrying the four men. We
estimated that the grenade was to be thrown into an unoccupied place ...
a place or a facility owned by the U.S. embassy," Bachtiar told
reporters.
Speaking
after a meeting with senior Security Minister Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono,
Bachtiar said police had identified the two escapees and they would
"cross-check" information given by the driver with the two men
once they are apprehended.
However,
another senior police official, Jakarta Police Chief Inspector General
Makbul Padmanegara, said it was too early to know whether the attack was
linked to the U.S. embassy house.
"It
is as yet uncertain whether the U.S. embassy house was the target,"
Padmanegara told the private Metro TV television station.
A
U.S. State Department official in Washington said the residence was
unoccupied and that there was no evidence yet to prove that the building
was being targeted.
And
the U.S. embassy in Jakarta in a statement insisted that so far
"there are no indications that U.S. Embassy properties or U.S.
interests were targeted."
The
explosion caused the van to swerve into an electricity pole near the
U.S. embassy house, but there were no signs of substantial damage to
nearby buildings.
Police
in Gunung Putri in the southern outskirts of Jakarta, where the injured
driver lives, said they had arrested three other men in three different
houses and confiscated a home-made bomb, two smoke bombs produced by the
state weapons company Pindad and 20 handgun bullets.
Bachtiar
confirmed the raid had taken place but denied that police had arrested
the three men. He also said the smoke bomb canisters actually contained
TNT.
The
U.S. embassy in Jakarta and the U.S. consulate in the city of Surabaya
reopened a week ago after a "credible" security threat around
the anniversary of the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington.
The
U.S. embassy, some two kilometers (a little more than a mile) north of
the scene of the blast, remained guarded as usual with around 10 armed
police reinforcing embassy security guards. Two police trucks were also
parked nearby.
In
Indonesia, political forces are criticizing the U.S. policy which is
trying to link some Islamic institutions to Al-Qaeda, as 9 national and
Islamic forces, in addition to youth organizations demanded that the
U.S. stop its media campaign, which they dub black publicity against
Indonesia.
Such
vicious negative publicity will deepen feelings of hostility against
Washington, they said, adding that false accusations and fabricated
stories about terror networks should stop immediately.
Instead,
Washington should produce hard concrete evidence about any terror cells
it claims exist in Indonesia or in any other neighboring Islamic
country.
Hashem
Mozday, head of Nahdet El-Ulama', the biggest Islamic organization in
Indonesia, said that if the U.S. continues this alarming attitude,
anti-U.S. sentiments will increase.
Reports
in Times magazine about recent investigations into an attempt on
the life of Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri are nothing but a
part of the black publicity campaign which aims to distort the image of
Indonesian Muslims.
Meanwhile,
a bomb placed under a van exploded near a branch of the U.S. fast food
chain McDonald's outside the Lebanese capital overnight, without causing
injury, witnesses said Monday.
They
said the blast destroyed the van but caused no damage to the outlet in
Jounieh.
 |
|
A
grass-roots campaign to boycott U.S. products in protest at
Washington's flagrant bias to Israel has been under way in Lebanon
and several other Arab countries
|
Lebanese
police confirmed that a small bomb exploded in Jounieh, 25 kilometers
(15 miles) north of the capital, without causing casualties, but they
declined to give any further details.
On
May 9, a bomb damaged an outlet of another U.S. fast food chain, KFC, in
the northern town of Tripoli, slightly wounding a security guard in an
overnight attack.
A
grass-roots campaign to boycott U.S. products in protest at Washington's
flagrant bias to Israel in its conflict with the Palestinians has been
under way in Lebanon and several other Arab countries. The campaign has
especially intensified after the recent Israeli reoccupation of the
Palestinian territories and its daily aggression against the Palestinian
population under the protection of the United states.
