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.
Airlines in Australia, Hong Kong, India, Malaysia and Singapore yesterday canceled flights to and from the Indonesian island of Bali, after a nearby volcano catapulted an ash tower into the sky. Australia’s Jetstar, Qantas and Virgin Australia all grounded flights after Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki on Flores island spewed a 9km tower a day earlier. Malaysia Airlines, AirAsia, India’s IndiGo and Singapore’s Scoot also listed flights as canceled. “Volcanic ash poses a significant threat to safe operations of the aircraft in the vicinity of volcanic clouds,” AirAsia said as it announced several cancelations. Multiple eruptions from the 1,703m twin-peaked volcano in
Farmer Liu Bingyong used to make a tidy profit selling milk but is now leaking cash — hit by a dairy sector crisis that embodies several of China’s economic woes. Milk is not a traditional mainstay of Chinese diets, but the Chinese government has long pushed people to drink more, citing its health benefits. The country has expanded its dairy production capacity and imported vast numbers of cattle in recent years as Beijing pursues food self-sufficiency. However, chronically low consumption has left the market sloshing with unwanted milk — driving down prices and pushing farmers to the brink — while
China has built a land-based prototype nuclear reactor for a large surface warship, in the clearest sign yet Beijing is advancing toward producing the nation’s first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, according to a new analysis of satellite imagery and Chinese government documents provided to The Associated Press. There have long been rumors that China is planning to build a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, but the research by the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in California is the first to confirm it is working on a nuclear-powered propulsion system for a carrier-sized surface warship. Why is China’s pursuit of nuclear-powered carriers significant? China’s navy is already
‘SIGNS OF ESCALATION’: Russian forces have been aiming to capture Ukraine’s eastern Donbas province and have been capturing new villages as they move toward Pokrovsk Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi on Saturday said that Ukraine faced increasing difficulties in its fight against Moscow’s invasion as Russian forces advance and North Korean troops prepare to join the Kremlin’s campaign. Syrskyi, relating comments he made to a top US general, said outnumbered Ukrainian forces faced Russian attacks in key sectors of the more than two-and-a-half-year-old war with Russia. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in a nightly address said that Ukraine’s military command was focused on defending around the town of Kurakhove — a target of Russia’s advances along with Pokrovsk, a logistical hub to the north. He decried strikes
RSS