Indonesian authorities stepped up the hunt for suspects behind a blast outside the Australian embassy that left nine people dead and some 180 injured, as police said at least 10 newly-recruited suicide bombers were still at large, a news report said yesterday.
"We are now racing against time to capture the masterminds before they take their next step," a high-ranking police detective told the English-language Jakarta Post daily.
The report comes after Australian Police Commissioner Mick Keelty's warning of a second cell of suicide bombers and a warning by Indonesia's national police chief National Police Chief Dai Bachtiar that more attacks by the group that carried out last Thursday's bombing were imminent.
As a result, Bachtiar said security forces were doubling efforts to track down suspects Azahari Husin and Noordin Moh Top, two Malaysian bomb experts suspected of involvement in the blast outside the Australian embassy, as well as the October 2002 Bali bombings, which left 202 people dead, and the August 2003 JW Marriott Hotel blast, which killed 13 people in Jakarta.
The two Malaysian fugitives are suspected members of the al-Qaeda-linked regional terrorist group Jemaah Islamiyah.
The US and Australian embassies continued to issue warnings to their nationals over the weekend to avoid certain areas of Jakarta and "soft targets" such as Western hotels.
Police detectives on Sunday put together a recreation of the events leading up to the explosion in front of the embassy, using a truck similar to the one suspected of carrying the explosives.
Authorities over the weekend released a video of footage captured by closed circuit cameras purportedly seconds before the attack.
The video showed a Daihatsu Zebra truck drive in front of the Australian embassy, followed by a huge explosion.
Indonesia yesterday began enforcing its newly ratified penal code, replacing a Dutch-era criminal law that had governed the country for more than 80 years and marking a major shift in its legal landscape. Since proclaiming independence in 1945, the Southeast Asian country had continued to operate under a colonial framework widely criticized as outdated and misaligned with Indonesia’s social values. Efforts to revise the code stalled for decades as lawmakers debated how to balance human rights, religious norms and local traditions in the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation. The 345-page Indonesian Penal Code, known as the KUHP, was passed in 2022. It
‘DISRESPECTFUL’: Katie Miller, the wife of Trump’s most influential adviser, drew ire by posting an image of Greenland in the colors of the US flag, captioning it ‘SOON’ US President Donald Trump on Sunday doubled down on his claim that Greenland should become part of the US, despite calls by the Danish prime minister to stop “threatening” the territory. Washington’s military intervention in Venezuela has reignited fears for Greenland, which Trump has repeatedly said he wants to annex, given its strategic location in the arctic. While aboard Air Force One en route to Washington, Trump reiterated the goal. “We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security, and Denmark is not going to be able to do it,” he said in response to a reporter’s question. “We’ll worry about Greenland in
PERILOUS JOURNEY: Over just a matter of days last month, about 1,600 Afghans who were at risk of perishing due to the cold weather were rescued in the mountains Habibullah set off from his home in western Afghanistan determined to find work in Iran, only for the 15-year-old to freeze to death while walking across the mountainous frontier. “He was forced to go, to bring food for the family,” his mother, Mah Jan, said at her mud home in Ghunjan village. “We have no food to eat, we have no clothes to wear. The house in which I live has no electricity, no water. I have no proper window, nothing to burn for heating,” she added, clutching a photograph of her son. Habibullah was one of at least 18 migrants who died
Russia early yesterday bombarded Ukraine, killing two people in the Kyiv region, authorities said on the eve of a diplomatic summit in France. A nationwide siren was issued just after midnight, while Ukraine’s military said air defenses were operating in several places. In the capital, a private medical facility caught fire as a result of the Russian strikes, killing one person and wounding three others, the State Emergency Service of Kyiv said. It released images of rescuers removing people on stretchers from a gutted building. Another pre-dawn attack on the neighboring city of Fastiv killed one man in his 70s, Kyiv Governor Mykola
RSS