Experts baffled by nature of bombs in Tuesday's blasts

JAKARTA (JP): Police forensic experts are at a loss over what exactly caused three powerful bombs to explode in an empty room of a two-story boardinghouse at Jl. Cikoko Barat III No. 23 in Pancoran, South Jakarta, on Tuesday morning.

National Police forensic laboratory deputy chief Sr. Comr. Dudon Setia Putra told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday that the bombs contained the high explosive TNT (trinitrotoluene), potassium chlorate and sulfur.

"What we are baffled by is how did these bombs explode when there were no detonators. No batteries, no detonators or accelerators, nothing," he said.

The bomb blasts injured five people, and damaged at least four cars and four houses, although no fatalities were reported.

A forensic expert said that his immediate superior had instructed him and his subordinates to find out whether a combination of sulfur, potassium chlorate and TNT could explode on its own.

"Neither of the components in the three bombs could have worked as an accelerator or catalyst. We are still testing the theory as to whether it was possible that the room temperature and the level of oxygen in the room could have caused the bombs to explode," the forensic expert, who requested anonymity, told the Post.

Speaking for the National Police Forensic Laboratory, the expert said that whoever had made the homemade bombs had used conventional steel pipes to make it look like he was a "semi- professional" bomb assembler.

"We know that this is not the work of a semi-professional. This person knows explosives and is well-trained and probably a bomb expert," the official said.

Of the seven bombs found in and around the crime scene, the forensic official said six were encased in steel pipes which were each about 10 centimeters long and five centimeters in diameter.

The bottoms of the cylinders were capped by steel caps, while the tops had red-colored fuses. Each pipe bomb, he said, weighed about 600 grams.

The official added that aside from the seven bombs, police had also found 21 steel caps for pipes at the crime scene. Apparently, the assembler had planned to make 21 pipe bombs.

Separately, Jakarta Police spokesman Sr. Comr. Anton Bachrul Alam said on Wednesday that police detectives had released 41 witnesses in the case, and had named at least 17 of them as principal witnesses.

The suspect at large is Edi Susilo, a student of Borobudur University who had been renting the room where the bombs exploded.

Anton said that police had distributed Edi's sketches to all police precincts and subprecincts.

An official for the National Police Intelligence and Security Directorate, who also requested anonymity, added the police had received information that the bombs were to have been planted at gas stations across the capital.

"That was the plan and that is what we heard. Of course, this time too, God showed us his hand. We were saved from a disaster," the official said. (ylt)