Report: Jemaah Islamiyah Bombed Jakarta

Police said Wednesday they seized documents last month showing terrorists were planning to target the area around Jakarta’s Marriott Hotel, where a powerful car bomb this week killed at least 10 people and injured nearly 150.

The documents were seized in a raid that netted seven alleged members of Jemaah Islamiyah, the regional militant group accused of carrying out last year’s Bali nightclub bombings.

Indonesia’s police chief said Wednesday police were focusing on Jemaah in the Marriott blast and pointed to similarities with the Bali attacks – including the apparent use of a mobile phone to detonated the blast.

A newspaper reported that a Jemaah operative claimed responsibility for the Marriott bombing.

After the document discovery in the central Java town of Semarang, Indonesian police increased security patrols in the Marriott area in the capital. “There was a warning that there were some targets and we have been anticipating an attack,” said Jakarta police spokesman Prasetyo, who like many Indonesians uses a single name.

In Tuesday’s bombing, an explosives-packed vehicle blew up on the driveway leading to the Marriott’s front entrance, turning the hotel – a frequent venue for U.S. Embassy functions and a popular place for foreigners to stay – into a bloody inferno.

Police on Wednesday released a composite sketch of one of two men who allegedly purchased the vehicle used in the bombing. Police said the man is believed to be the car’s last owner.

Jemaah Islamiyah – a shadowy group said to be fighting to install a pan-Islamic state in Southeast Asia – has been blamed for the Oct. 12 nightclub bombings in Bali that killed 202 people. The Marriott attack came two days before a verdict in the trial of a key suspect in the Bali attacks, Amrozi bin Nurhasyim, who faces a possible death sentence.

Amrozi reacted with joy over the Marriott attack as he testified at another Jemaah suspect’s trial in Bali. Asked about the blast, he grinned and yelled out, “Bomb!” After testifying at the same trial, the alleged mastermind of the Bali blasts, Imam Samudra, shouted, “Thank God, I am thankful,” about Tuesday’s bombing. “I am happy, especially if the perpetrators were Muslims.”

Singapore’s Straits Times newspaper on Wednesday quoted an unidentified Jemaah operative saying the Marriott attack was a “message for … all our enemies that, if they execute any of our Muslim brothers, we will continue this campaign of terror in Indonesia and the region.”

The largest Islamic political groups in this overwhelmingly Muslim nation – Nahdlatul Ulama and Muhammadiyah – condemned Tuesday’s bombing and offered condolences to the victims.

“The attack on the Marriott constituted a cruel and uncivilized crime against humanity, and ran against religious values,” the groups said in a joint statement Wednesday. “It not only hurt the people at the scene but hurt the whole Indonesian nation.”

Indonesia’s top security minister Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono warned on Wednesday that the ongoing court cases against Jemaah suspects would likely lead to more bombings in the vast archipelago nation.

“The government would like to remind the people … of the possibility of more terrorist attacks,” said Yudhoyono.

The Chase Plaza building in Jakarta, which houses JP Morgan Chase Bank, was evacuated Wednesday morning after a tenant in the building received a telephoned bomb threat. Details were not available.

National police chief Gen. Da’i Bachtiar said investigations into the Marriott attack had uncovered similarities to the Bali bombings. The bombers had tried to erase serial numbers on the vehicle’s engine and chassis, as was done in the Bali car bomb, he said. Police were still able to retrieve the necessary numbers, he said.

Indonesia’s chief of detectives, Erwin Mappaseng, told a press conference on Wednesday that the Marriott bombers used a mobile phone to detonate the explosives – the same method used in the Bali bombing – adding that the phone in question was found inside the wrecked car.

Mappaseng said it was too early to conclude that the evidence constituted a definitive link between the Marriott and the Bali blasts. But Bachtiar said the similarities have led police to focus their investigation on Jemaah Islamiyah.

Officials said RDX and TNT, common high-yield military explosives, were found at the scene. Both explosives were also used in the Bali bombings.

Keenly aware of the potential economic fallout from the latest blast – the Bali bombings wrecked tourism in one of the world’s premier vacation spots – Indonesia moved quickly to bolster security.

Yudhoyono said the government had ordered strict checks at the airport and other public places, and said officials would announce even stronger security measures on Wednesday.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: AP Writers Yeoh En-Lai and Lely Djuhari contributed to this report.