Al-Qaida blamed for Bali bombings

INDONESIA said yesterday it suspected two fugitives linked to al-Qaida masterminded the suicide bombings of crowded restaurants in tourist areas of Bali that killed at least 26 people and injured more than 100.

The nation’s president warned that more terrorist attacks are possible.

“The terrorists are still looking for soft targets,” President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said after touring the devastated areas on the Indonesian island.

He also said Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim nation, will do everything it can to prevent another strike.

Fears that Irish holidaymakers might have been caught up in the Bali bombings receded last night with no reports of injuries or fatalities among Irish citizens.

A spokesperson for the Department of Foreign Affairs said that, of 40 queries to their helpline since the bomb attacks, almost all had been satisfactorily resolved.

Maj Gen Ansyaad Mbai, a top Indonesian anti-terror official, identified the two suspected masterminds of Saturday’s bombings as Malaysians alleged to be key members of the al-Qaida-linked Jemaah Islamiyah terror group.

They are also accused of orchestrating the 2002 Bali nightclub bombings, as well as two other attacks in the Indonesian capital in 2003 and 2004. The nightclub bombings killed 202 people, most of them foreigners.

Saturday’s attacks occurred almost three years to the day after the nightclub bombings.

In the latest attacks, three suicide bombers wearing explosive vests set off near-simultaneous explosions that devastated three crowded restaurants.

Video footage of one blast showed groups of tourists seated at candlelit tables talking and sipping drinks in the seconds before the explosion. The footage then shows a bright flash accompanied by a loud bang and gusts of black smoke.

At almost the same time about 30km away in Kuta, a bomb exploded at the three-story Raja restaurant.