BALI, Oct 1: Three bomb blasts ripped through popular tourist areas on the Indonesian resort island of Bali on Saturday, killing 32 people including foreigners and wounding nearly 90.
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono condemned as terrorism the nearly simultaneous blasts, which come almost exactly three years after two blasts shattered night clubs in Bali, killing 202 people, mainly foreign tourists.
Police confirmed three blasts at separate restaurants packed with evening diners, two at popular seafood eateries on Jimbaran Beach and one at Kuta Beach in an area surrounded by shops.
“People were running for their lives. Foreign tourists were wounded. I am so scared,” Yosi, 24, a shop owner in Kuta Beach, near the blast site, said.
Australian Jason Childs said he was having dinner along Jimbaran Beach when the bombs went off.
“We helped a few victims on the sand there on the beach and there were a few people lying ... on the tables which are out on the beach, dead,” Mr Childs told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
“I didn’t want to walk in there too far, too scared another bomb would go off, and everyone started screaming ‘there’s another bomb’ and \ everyone started running.”
The site of the Jimbaran blasts is near the upmarket Four Seasons Hotel.
Inside the badly damaged Raja restaurant and bar in Kuta Beach, a popular eatery, blood was spattered on the floor. Shattered glass from other shops and cafes littered the street.
People were crying and looked shocked, television pictures showed. Wounded Indonesian victims sat on the pavement, while foreigners appeared to be in panic.
President Yudhoyono said it was too soon to blame anyone for the attacks, which security experts said bore the hallmarks of Jemaah Islamiah, a network seen as the regional arm of Al Qaeda.
Police have blamed Jemaah Islamiah for a series of attacks against Western targets in the world’s most populous Muslim nation in recent years, including the 2002 Bali blasts, which also took place on a Saturday night.
They have launched roughly one major attack every year since then.—Reuters/AFP
BALI, Oct 1: Three bomb blasts ripped through popular tourist areas on the Indonesian resort island of Bali on Saturday, killing 32 people including foreigners and wounding nearly 90.
