Indonesian police find explosives after restaurant attack
Police found two bombs, explosive powder, cables and shrapnel in the house of a man suspected in a blast at an American fast food restaurant in the Indonesian capital Jakarta, investigators said today, suggesting more attacks were planned.
Officers declined to speculate on a motive for Saturday's attack, but said the bomber was "unprofessional," indicating he was not linked to the al-Qaida-linked group Jemaah Islamiyah, blamed for a string of well-organised and deadly strikes on Western targets in Indonesia since 2002.
But a boy who identified himself as a relative of the suspect told a local radio station he apparently admired the terror network and was willing to die for Islam.
Only the 36-year-old bomber was injured in the lunchtime blast at the A&W restaurant, which caused little damage but added to jitters over security days ahead of US President George Bush's visit to the world's most populous Muslim nation, said Jakarta's police spokesman Ketut Untung Yoga.
Witnesses said the suspect looked ill and was visibly shaking when he triggered the rudimentary device while seated at a table.
He was taken to hospital with wounds to his head, heart, leg and hand, police said, and did not regain consciousness until more than 24 hours after the attack.
"He's in a critical condition," anti-terror official Budi Cahyono said of the suspect. "He's on a respirator."
Soon after the blast in east Jakarta, police raided a nearby house where they suspected the bomber lived after tracing the address through an identity card found in his pocket.
Cahyono said officers seized two bombs ready for detonation from the house, together with powder explosives, cables and a timer, but "nothing that could not have been bought at an ordinary market". Two of the man's relatives were taken in for questioning, officers said.
The suspect was apparently acting alone, Cahyono said, adding that police hoped that they would soon be able to interrogate him about his motive.
"He's conscious now," Col. Petrus Reinhard Golose of Indonesia's anti-terror task force told reporters at the hospital. "He just regained consciousness."
The Islamic militant group Jemaah Islamiyah has been blamed for four attacks targeting Western interests in Indonesia since 2002, two in the capital and two on the resort island of Bali that together killed more than 240 people.
Bush is scheduled to make a brief stopover in Indonesia - seen as a close ally in Washington's declared war on terror - on November 20 after attending an APEC meeting in Vietnam.
Security will be tight, with Indonesia saying it plans to deploy some 20,000 soldiers and police for his 10-hour visit.
