Police yesterday scrutinized an amateur video tape showing a man apparently with a backpack entering a Bali restaurant seconds before one of three suicide bombings which killed up to 27 people and wounded 125. A top anti-terrorism official said the investigation into Saturday’s attacks was focusing on Islamic militants blamed for previous bloody bombings in the world’s most populous Muslim nation. Investigators released chilling video footage late on Sunday of a man in a black shirt and jeans strolling into a restaurant on the resort island, followed almost instantly by an explosion. Three separate bombs tore through restaurants packed with Saturday evening diners, many of them foreign tourists. Two were outdoor seafood eateries on Jimbaran Beach and one a steak bar at Kuta Beach, an area surrounded by popular shops.

The attacks were the latest of a series of bombings in Indonesia in recent years. Several have been against Western targets, hurting tourism and raising investors’ security fears. Indonesia’s rupiah currency and share market came under initial selling pressure yesterday, but the sharp drops were short-lived. At 0337 GMT the key market index was off only a fraction while the rupiah had more than made up initial losses and was at around 10,255 to the dollar.

Traders have noted past bomb attacks had limited overall impact on Indonesia, the world’s fourth most populous country, while the blast effect was also being balanced by fuel price hikes implemented over the weekend. There was relief the hikes had not sparked serious social unrest and a view they were good for the economy in the long run. The nearly simultaneous Bali explosions came almost three years after al Qaeda-linked Jemaah Islamiah (JI) militants bombed nightclubs in Bali, killing 202 people, mostly foreign tourists.

Asked yesterday if the same group as in 2002 appeared to be behind the latest blasts, Ansyaad Mbai, a top Indonesian counter-terrorism official, said: “Yes, the investigation is moving to that direction.” In terms of whether that specifically meant Jemaah Islamiah and two of its fugitive leaders, Malaysians Azahari bin Husin and Noordin M. Top, Mbai told Reuters: “What is clear and important from this incident is that all those groups who have been here for some time still have the capabilities to operate. This group is not dead.”

<B>“A Bali hospital official said yesterday that 16 of 27 dead had so far been identified – 14 Indonesians, one Australian and one Japanese.”</B>

Mbai, head of the counter-terrorism desk at the office of the chief security minister, said he thought Azahari and Top were still in Indonesia. “The latest incident clearly shows they have activities,” he added. One reason experts link JI to the blasts is the use of suicide bombers, typical of their attacks. “We have reached a conclusion that they were suicide bombings,” Bali police chief Made Mangku Pastika told a late Sunday news conference. “There are pieces from either a jacket or a bag that were attached to the bodies. The pieces from their torsos spattered to all directions,” Pastika said, adding that the composition of the bombs included TNT and metal slugs.

He said the severed heads of three people believed to be the suicide bombers had been recovered. Photos of the heads displayed by police appeared to show they were young Asian men. Pastika said the suicide bombers could not have acted alone and a larger group of people must have been involved. Yesterday morning a team of what appeared to be four foreign forensics experts was seen entering the Kuta Beach bomb site. Australia has said it would send investigators to help. There were no immediate claims of responsibility. Typically groups have not taken credit for major bombings in Indonesia.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said in Bali on Sunday the blasts would only strengthen Jakarta’s resolve. “We will do more in our national effort in fighting terrorism,” he said. Police said Jakarta, the sprawling capital city of 12 million people, was on high alert, with some 18,000 officers on standby. A Bali hospital official said yesterday that 16 of 27 dead had so far been identified – 14 Indonesians, one Australian and one Japanese. Bali police chief Pastika had said on Sunday that only 22 people had been confirmed killed, of whom five were foreigners.

Hospital officials had said earlier that the wounded included 64 Indonesians, 20 Australians, seven South Koreans, four Americans, three Japanese, one French, and one German, with other nationalities unknown. Bali, 960 km (595 miles) east of Jakarta, is Indonesia’s most popular destination for foreign tourists. I Gde Pitana, former Bali tourism authority chief and now a senior official at the national tourism ministry, told Reuters he expected some impact from the blasts but not as much as in 2002. “There are many tourists that are relaxed and the panic level is far from 2002 (when) there was an instant exodus and an instant drop of arrivals,” he said.

<B>Achmad SUKARSONO</B>