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2003 Marriott Hotel Bombing
Location	Jakarta, Indonesia
Date	August 5, 2003 11:58 AM (UTC+7)
Target	JW Marriott Hotel
Attack type	Suicide bombing, car bomb, and other bombing
Injured	12 killed, 150 injured
Perpetrators	Jemaah Islamiyah

The 2003 Marriott Hotel bombing occurred on 5 August 2003 in Setiabudi, South Jakarta, Indonesia. A suicide bomber detonated a car bomb outside the lobby of the JW Marriott Hotel, killing twelve people and injuring 150. All those killed were Indonesian with the exception of one Dutch businessman. The hotel was closed for five weeks and reopened to the public on 8 September.

File:Hambali.jpg

Hambali, head of Jemaah Islamiyah and leading suspect of Mariott Hotel bombing in Jakarta

Prelude

Two weeks before the deadly bomb blast at the J.W. Marriott Hotel in Jakarta, senior Indonesian police officers delivered a briefing in that city's dilapidated police headquarters. They announced they were certain the city faced an imminent bomb attack by Islamic extremists but also tacitly acknowledged they could do little to prevent it. A militant captured during a raid in the central Java city of Semarang in the previous July confessed that he had recently delivered two carloads of bombmaking materials to Jakarta. During the raid, police had discovered drawings outlining specific areas of the city for possible attack by members of Jemaah Islamiah (JI), the regional network of terrorists blamed for the Bali bombings that killed 202. "Steps were taken to go on high alert," says one of the participants in the briefing. "Leave was canceled; patrols in the target areas were increased, and the hunt for JI operatives in the capital was intensified. But in a city like Jakarta�, 20 million people spread out over hundreds of square kilometers �there's not much else you can do."

The Explosion

Police in Jakarta say a car loaded with explosives drove through the taxi stand in front of the Marriott Hotel and kept heading straight for the lobby. The bomb was detonated, and its blast radius was visible along the shattered windows of nearby buildings. Indonesian Police siad one of the ingredients in the car bomb contained the same chemical used in the deadly 2002 Bali bombing. At least 12 people were killed and about 150 injured.

The attack came two days before a verdict came down in the trial of the Bali nightclub bombers. Al Qaeda claimed responsibility for the attack and the perpetrators are known to have trained in Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan. In May 2004, Muhammad Rais was found guilty of violating anti-terrorism laws in connection with this attack. Rais is accused of transporting explosives from various towns to Jakarta, where they were used in the bomb. Rais will serve seven years in prison for his role in the attack. ""We saw the Marriott attack as a message from Osama bin Laden,"" Rais said at his trail.

Investigation

Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), an organisation allegedly affiliated with al-Qaeda, is suspected of responsibility for the bombing. 14 suspected Islamic militants have been arrested in connection with the attacks. The police conceded that they were in possession of information, gained from an interrogation, about possible JI strikes in the days before the attack. Possible targets where believed to include the Grand Hyatt, Mulia and the Marriott hotels, the Citraland and Kelapa Gading malls in Jakarta, along with various sites used by Christian congregations. Although police insisted that they were increasing security in these areas, in the case of the Marriott, the hotel's management says no warning was ever delivered.

On May 5 2006 the Crisis Group Asia released a report (114) entitled Terrorism in Indonesia. It described the events leading up the attack;

The accidental trigger for the Marriott bombing came in December 2002. As police stepped up their hunt for JI members in the aftermath of Bali, Toni Togar, a JI member based in Medan, North Sumatra, got nervous, because his house stored all the explosives left over from JI’s December 2000 Christmas Eve bombings. He contacted Noordin to tell him he was going to throw them out. The question is why he chose Noordin, rather than his immediate superior in the JI organisation, the head of the wakalah, who apparently was reachable. The answer may give a clue to Noordin’s subsequent activities. The team that carried out the Christmas Eve bombings was led by Hambali and included Imam Samudra and many of the 2002 Bali bombers. From the beginning these men were operating outside the JI administrative structure, not even part of its special forces unit, laskar khos, that reported directly to Zulkarnaen, the person on the central command responsible for military affairs.

Abu Bakar Ba’asyir was aware of Hambali’s activities, but most wakalah members were not, and people like Toni Togar were often selected to take part without the knowledge of their division leaders. Hambali had thus set a precedent for a secret team pursuing jihad on its own. This was probably in part because he controlled separate funding, including from al-Qaeda. Toni Togar and Azhari had both been members of Hambali’s team, and while it is not clear how Noordin got involved, it was logical for Togar to convey his plans to dispose of the explosives to someone within this circle. Noordin, however, saw good materials being wasted and Malaysia to teach at Luqmanul Hakiem and joined the subdivision (wakalah) of JI’s Mantiqi I in Johor. He remained there until February 2002 when his other Malaysian brother-

in-law was arrested as a member of a JI affiliate, Kumpulan Mujahidin Malaysia (KMM), which consisted of Malaysian nationals, many of whom were members of the Malaysian opposition political party, PAS. JIreportedly did not want to seem as if itwere poaching fromPAS, so it encouraged those interested in JI to form their own organisation. Crisis Group interviews,

Jakarta, March 2006.

In January 2003, Rais, Noordin and Azhari moved to Bengkulu, where a group of JI members lived, including Asmar Latin Sani, who became the Marriott suicide bomber. Noordin and Azhari planned the bombing there as a way of putting the explosives to good use. JI members

in Bengkulu, Lampung, and Riau were involved in some planning and logistical support but were not told the target. Interestingly, Noordin began to plan for a spectacular attack with some of the Bengkulu members just as others from their wakalah were taking part in a program to refresh their military skills, as a response to the exposure and arrests that followed the Bali bombings. For most of the top JI leadership, this was a time for training and consolidation – not new attacks. But Hambali had set the precedent of going off on his own, and Noordin followed it. The next stages of the operation involved small teams with ties to one another beyond the JI affiliation. Getting the explosives from Dumai to Bengkulu via Pekanbaru, Riau, in February 2003 and securing additional materials such as detonators involved Noordin, Azhari, Rais, Toni Togar, and a new team member, Masrizal bin Ali Umar.

Mohammed Nazir Bin Lep is one of Hambali's key lieutenants, officials said. He allegedly transferred al Qaeda funds used for the Jakarta Marriott Hotel bombing in 2003 and he knew of Jemaah Islamiyah plots to launch attacks elsewhere in Southeast Asia. The CIA claims he was slated to be a suicide operative for a "second wave" of al Qaeda attacks targeting Los Angeles.

External links

• "Marriott blast suspects named", CNN
• "Marriott Hotel in Jakarta reopens", Xinhua