War against terrorism has just begun
The Washington Post, Washington
The death toll from Saturday night's bombing on the Indonesian resort island of Bali makes this latest act of terrorism the worst of its kind worldwide since the Sept. 11 attacks in America. More than 180 people were killed and more than 300 wounded in the bomb explosion outside of the tourist-packed nightclub. It was, said the country's national police chief, "the worst act of terror in Indonesia's history." The explosion was not, however, the first despicable act of terrorism on Indonesian soil.
Another bomb exploded near a U.S. consular office in the Bali capital city of Denpasar. On the same evening, a small bomb exploded outside another discotheque, and a small handmade bomb broke windows of the Philippine consulate on another Indonesian island. Last month, a grenade was exploded during the early morning hours in a vehicle in front of an unoccupied U.S. building in Jakarta. Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim country, is becoming a haven for terrorists, both home-grown and, as many suspect, the al Qaeda network.
It should not have taken a deadly inferno to demonstrate to President Megawati Soekarnoputri's government that stronger action must be taken against the extremists now operating nearly at will in Indonesia. That a strong anti-terrorism law is bottled up in parliament underscores the lack of official resolve in confronting a danger and threat to Indonesia and her neighbors that grow worse with each passing day.
There is no accommodating Jemaah Islamiyah, the militant Indonesian group with ties to al Qaeda and its dream of a pan- Islamic state across the region. Either local extremists and al Qaeda are sought out and fought, or Indonesia will become the base of operations for global terrorism and a scourge to its Southeast Asian neighbors.
The Saturday bombings, coming as they did two years to the day after the USS Cole was bombed in a Yemeni port, are a reminder that Western interests, particularly American interests, are always in the crosshairs of terrorists. The attacks are also a sobering reminder that the war against terrorism is in its early stages, that more attacks against American interests and targets can be expected and that to the extent this country becomes distracted from the overriding demand to break the back of terrorism, we do so at our own peril.