A bomb ripped through a busy passenger terminal at Jakarta's main airport yesterday, wounding 11 people, in an attack that police said was "meant to terrorize."
One person was seriously injured in the blast that witnesses said occurred between a fast food restaurant and a ticket counter for Indonesia's national carrier, Garuda. It sent shards of broken window glass flying and tossed rows of chairs across the terminal.
Many of the injured were covered in blood. Hundreds of passengers, workers and others ran from the red brick and concrete building.
Police Chief General Da'i Bachtiar confirmed that a bomb caused the explosion and that no one had claimed responsibility for the attack -- the second of its kind in the capital in four days.
Yesterday's attack was the latest in a long series of bombings in Jakarta. Indonesia is the world's most populous Muslim nation and is struggling to deal with a list of terrorist and secessionist movements that mushroomed after the ouster of the dictator Suharto almost five years ago.
The blast occurred at about 6:30am behind a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant in the domestic departure area at the capital's Sukarno Hatta International Airport, Bachtiar said.
Chief Detective Lieutenant General Erwin Mapasseng said the bomb appeared similar to a small pipe bomb that exploded outside the main UN building in downtown Jakarta on Thursday. No one was injured in that blast.
"This was meant to terrorize people," Mapasseng said of yesterday's blast. "If people are scared, then these people have achieved their goal. We're asking people not to panic and to remain calm."
Mapasseng also said police had found a bag near the blast site which may have contained the bomb. Witnesses also said they noticed a bag sitting outside the restaurant minutes before the explosion.
Dede, a food stall worker in the airport, said there was a brief electrical power outage in the terminal moments before the blast. "Then I heard a loud explosion," he said.
Police sealed off the area near the restaurant, but the terminal remained open and flights were operating, Dede said.
The blast comes four days after Abu Bakar Bashir -- the alleged spiritual leader of the al-Qaeda-linked Islamic group Jemaah Islamiyah -- went on trial for treason.
Also, two days ago, the Indonesian government angrily canceled Geneva talks with rebels that had been aimed at saving a Dec. 9 peace accord in the strife torn province of Aceh, where thousands have died in decades of fighting in a guerrilla independence war on the northern tip of Sumatra island.
Bashir is accused of involvement in a series of 2000 Christmas Eve church bombings that killed 19 people. He has denied accusations that those blasts were intended to whip up violence between majority Muslims and Christians in a bid to destabilize Indonesia's secular government.
Western intelligence officials have claimed that Jemaah Islamiyah wants to set up a hardline Islamic state across much of Southeast Asia. Bashir, a Muslim cleric, has denied the charges against him as "lies from America."
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