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.
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