Bali gears up for third anniversary of 2002 bombings
Bali gears up for third anniversary of 2002 bombings
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Police will launch a major security operation for the third commemoration on Wednesday of the Oct. 12, 2002 bombings on the resort island of Bali, which killed 202 people, mostly foreign tourists.
Bali Police spokesman Sr. Com. A.S. Reniban said the operation would involve some 3,000 security officers, including Balinese security guards called pecalang.
"We will deploy some 1,500 police officers, assisted by pecalang and TNI officers. So in total they will be around 3,000 personnel," Reniban said on Saturday.
Separately, National Police spokesman Brig. Gen. Soenarko was quoted by Antara as saying his office was also increasing its intelligence activities on the island ahead of the Oct. 12 commemoration.
The anniversary falls just 12 days after a second round of bomb blasts in Bali, which killed at least 23 people, including three suicide bombers, and injured more than 100 others.
The police are now working hard to identify the bombers and have widened the hunt outside Bali for the masterminds of the latest attack. However, no significant progress has been achieved in the investigation a week after the incident.
Two suspected key players in both attacks, Malaysian fugitives Noordin M. Top and Azahari bin Husin, are the main targets of the intensive hunt.
Photos of the heads of the three suicide bombers, which survived the blasts almost intact, have been widely circulated but no one has identified them. Police say they are from a "new generation" of attackers unknown to previously convicted militants.
Reniban further said the police were tightening security in every entrance point to Bali, including the Gilimanuk and Padang Bai seaports and the Ngurah Rai International Airport.
Apart from that, he added, intelligence activities would also be intensified at a number of tourist spots such as Kuta, Jimbaran, Nusa Dua and Sanur.
Reniban said the island was ready for the commemoration.
He said people were generally feeling secure, including in the recent celebration of Galungan, despite the fact that some places were still deserted as some tourists had left the island.
Australian foreign minister Alexander Downer -- whose country lost 88 people in the 2002 attacks and four on Oct. 1 -- will be among those attending the commemoration event. Also present will be other top national and foreign figures.
One ceremony will be held early on Wednesday at "Ground Zero" -- the scene of the blasts in Legian, Kuta -- one in the morning involving the visiting Australian dignitaries and another in the late evening for the local community, Reniban said.
Bali's crucial tourism industry, severely devastated by the 2002 nightclub blasts, has suffered another setback following the Oct. 1 attack.
Victims of the latest blasts are still recovering in hospital, some with terrible wounds from the bombs, which were packed with ball bearings and shrapnel to maximize death and injury.
Made Ardani, 22, was working as a waitress at the Menega cafe in Jimbaran when the first bomb exploded.
She is recovering from surgery to remove metal pellets from six different parts of her body.
"I am still feeling unwell. All I can think of is that those bombers should be brought here and handed over to my relatives," Ardani was quoted by AFP as saying in Sanglah Hospital.