Blast rocks Jakarta

Blast rocks Jakarta

The powerful bomb that exploded on Thursday outside the
Australian Embassy in the Kuningan business district, South
Jakarta, was the latest in a string of terrorist attacks across
the country since 2000. At least seven people were killed and 161
others wounded in the blast, which came one year after a suicide
bomb ripped through the JW Marriott Hotel on Aug. 5 in the nearby
Mega Kuningan business district, nearly two years since the Oct.
12, 2002, Bali bombings, and two days before the third
anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attack on the U.S.

Photo A +B: Blast

Photo A: JP/Mulkan Salmona

Photo B: AP/Achmad Ibrahim

SIFTING FOR ANSWERS: The Jakarta Police's forensic team (photo
above) comb through debris for traces of the bomb that exploded
in front of the Australian Embassy in South Jakarta. Upon her
arrival from Brunei on Thursday, President Megawati Soekarnoputri
(photo right) visited the site of the explosion, accompanied by
foreign minister Hassan Wirayuda (right) and Coordinating
Minister for the Economy Dorodjatun Kuntjoro Jakti (second right,
partially hidden), where she met with Australian Ambassador David
Ritchie (left).

Photo C+D: Blast

Photo C: JP/Arief Suhardiman

Photo D: JP/Arief Suhardiman

COUNTING THE LOSSES: A police officer collects information from
toe tags attached to the bodies of victims who perished in the
blast, laid out in the morgue of the Metropolitan Medical Centre
(MMC) hospital (photo left). Police denied entry to staff members
of the Australian Embassy due to tightened security measures
following the blast on Thursday (photo right).