Death in Bali

Death in Bali

Three years after the previous nightclub bombing on the Indonesian island of Bali, terrorists struck again on Saturday. Three suicide bombers wearing explosives blew themselves up, killing between 20 and 30 people and injuring 104.

The purpose of this weekend's attack and of the Oct. 12, 2002 attack, in which 202 were killed and a further 209 injured, may have been to frighten tourists away from the beach resort. But the terror effect was clearly short-lived because the resort was once again filled with holiday-makers.

The death toll in the latest attack was uncertain because the authorities were recovering dismembered body parts and it was not immediately obvious how many people had died. A hospital yesterday said 29 and the police commander said 22. Either way, the toll was far less than three years ago.

A similar decline in lethal power of terrorist attacks has been seen in western Europe. The commuter train bombings in Madrid in March 2004 killed 191 people and injured 1,500 while the July bus and underground attacks in London this year killed 56 and injured about 700. These are terrible crimes in which civilians die for somebody's political campaign.

Governments of all countries have to be alert to the efforts of fanatics. The evidence suggests, however, that anti-terror efforts are bearing fruit, because the terrorists have nothing like the power they seemed to have when the twin towers of the World Trade Center were destroyed in September 2001. Terrorist havens have been eliminated.

Bank transfers between terror agents and their employers have been impeded. Air travelers are much more carefully watched. We have all paid a price in privacy and civil liberties, but at least the terrorists have been weakened and the death tolls have shrunk. The war may continue a long time yet, but at the moment the terrorists are losing. -- Winnipeg Free Press, Winnipeg, Canada