Bomb attack survivor leads battle against terrorists

Bomb attack survivor leads battle against terrorists

Associated Press, Manila, Philippines

When Philippine Ambassador Leonides Caday talks of the urgency of
combating terrorism, he doesn't need fiery rhetoric or doomsday
warnings. He just tells of how he survived a 2000 car bombing in
Indonesia that left him with metal plates in his legs.

The dynamite-rigged van near his Jakarta residence killed two
people and left him with ugly scars, and was among the first in a
wave of bombings later blamed on Jemaah Islamiyah, an al-Qaida-
linked group believed to be seeking a hardline Islamic state in
Southeast Asia.

"I was the first victim of terrorism," Caday told The
Associated Press in an interview.

Caday was the Philippines' top envoy to Indonesia at the time.
Now 73, he has since recovered -- his bomb-shattered legs
reinforced with metal plates to allow him to walk again, though
he has to use a cane.

He's now a foreign affairs adviser on terrorism and other
security threats, and attends anti-terror conferences, using his
story as a warning to others.

He recalled the horror of the car-bomb attack during the
interview Tuesday.

Seated behind his driver, Caday said they were about to enter
his residence in Jakarta's swank diplomatic district when a van
exploded beside the gate, spewing fire and debris.

"From inside, I heard this muffled boom," he said. "All the
window glasses were blown into shreds, some puncturing my
business suit. Dark-grayish smoke filled the car and I remember
shutting my eyes because it was painful. I covered my face with
my hands."

He said he wasn't immediately aware that his legs were mangled
by the blast, his hair and eyebrows burned and blood dripping all
over his numb body.

Caday said he struggled to get out but all the doors were
jammed. He turned to his Indonesian driver but found out he was
blown out of the car by the impact. The driver survived, but a
house guard and a passer-by died on the spot.

Caday said his car would have caught fire but was doused by
water spurting out of an underground pipe damaged by the blast.

Last October, an Indonesian court convicted and handed a 20-
year jail term to Abdul Jabar, who confessed he drove the bomb-
laden van to Caday's residence then detonated it using a mobile
phone.

A suspected Jemaah Islamiyah bomb expert arrested in the
Philippines, Fathur Rohman Al-Ghozi, also was charged in the
attack.

He had allegedly admitted to the bombing, with Jabar and
another man, on orders of the group's operations chief, Hambali,
an Indonesian whose real name is Riduan Isamuddin, to avenge a
military offensive on Muslim separatists in the southern
Philippines.

But Al-Ghozi escaped from police custody in July and was
killed by police in a shootout last October.

Despite his brush with death, Caday said he harbors no ill
feelings toward his attackers or Indonesia, which has been
criticized by the United States and other countries for not doing
enough to contain terror threats.

A foreign affairs veteran since 1968, Caday also doesn't
advocate a military solution but urges governments to try to ease
conditions that trigger unrest and rebellion -- such as poverty.

He called Al-Ghozi a harmless man who was misled by his
beliefs, and recalled meeting him face-to-face at a justice
department hearing. "I shook his hand and he smiled," Caday said.
Still, the attack taught him a painful lesson -- that terrorists
could strike any time, including those who think they are not
likely targets. "I thought I had no enemies," he said.

And although Caday wants to forget his tragedy, he says it
comes back to haunt him "every time I want to move quickly but
can't."

"It's like a wound, it heals, but it leaves a scar."

GetAP 1.00 -- APR 21, 2004 14:12:10