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

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Terrorism in Indonesia
Jakarta Stock Exchange bombing – Christmas Eve 2000 bombings – 2002 Bali bombings – 2003 Marriott Hotel bombing – 2004 Jakarta Embassy bombing – 2005 Bali bombings

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 viewed as a Western symbol, and had been used by the US embassy for various events.^[1] The hotel was closed for five weeks and reopened to the public on 8 September.

1 Prelude
2 The Explosion
3 Investigation
4 Plot
5 Suspects
6 Al Qaeda Connection
7 Effects
8 References
9 External links

[edit] Prelude

Two weeks prior the deadly bomb, there was a tip call to a senior Indonesian police officers from a militant captured during a raid in Semarang that two carloads of bombmaking materials were heading the capital, Jakarta. During the raid, the police also discovered some drawings outlining specific areas in the city for possible attacks.^[2]

[edit] The Explosion

Police in Jakarta say a Toyota Kijang (bought on July 20 from a Jakarta businessman for 25.75 million rupiah ($A4,600)).^[3] was loaded with explosives driven 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 said one of the ingredients in the car bomb contained the same chemical^[4]used in the deadly 2002 Bali bombing.^[5] The bombs in both cases were made of the same mixture of explosives, mobile phones were used as detonators, and the attackers tried to scrape off the identification numbers from the vehicles used.^[3]

The severed head of Asmar Latin Sani, 28, from West Sumatra, found on the fifth floor of the building, was identified by two jailed members of the Jemaah Islamiah group who said they had recruited him.^[4]

Investigators uncovered the charred remains of a battery used to power the bomb and said it was similar to the ones used in a series of bombings of Christian churches on Christmas Eve in 2000, in which 19 people died.^[3]

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.^[6] ""We saw the Marriott attack as a message from Osama bin Laden,"" Rais said at his trail.^[7]

[edit] Investigation

Six days after the atrocity on August 11 al-Qaeda claimed responsibility, via Al Jazeera, and singled out Australia for special attention.^[3] "This operation is part of a series of operations that Dr Ayman al-Zawahiri has promised to carry out," the statement said which also called the attack; "a fatal slap on the face of America and its allies in Muslim Jakarta, where faith has been denigrated by the dirty American presence and the discriminatory Australian presence".^[3]

Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), an organisation affiliated with al-Qaeda, is alleged to have carried out the bombing. The al-Qaeda link has been backed by Indonesia's Minister of Defense, Matori Abdul Djalil who said the Marriott bombers had trained with al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan. "Each one of them has special abilities received from training in Afghanistan and Pakistan," Matori Abdul Djalil said on August 11 2003. He also claimed that the bombers were linked to a group of people arrested last month in the eastern town of Semarang and alleged to be members of the al-Qaeda-linked South-East Asian terror group Jemaah Islamiah.

"There are many more Jemaah Islamiah members on the loose in Indonesia ... Because of this I am sure that JI is behind all of this,"

[edit] Plot

On May 5 2006 the International Crisis Group released its "Asia Report No 114" entitled Terrorism in Indonesia. It described the events leading up the attack;

The trigger for the Marriott bombing came in December 2002, when Indonesian police stepped up the hunt for Jemaah Islamiah members while investigating the 2002 Bali bombings. Toni Togar, a JI member based in Medan, North Sumatra, was nervous, because his house stored all the explosives left over from JI’s 2000 Christmas Eve bombings. He contacted Noordin Mohammed Top to tell him he was going to throw them out. Noordin previously was part of the team that carried out the Christmas Eve bombings which was led by Hambali and included Imam Samudra and many of the other 2002 Bali bombers. He told Togar to hold on as he "saw good materials being wasted".

Abu Bakar Bashir approved of Hambali’s activities, and Toni Togar was selected to take part in the new bombing plot. Hambali had already set a precedent for a secret team pursuing jihad on its own. This was in part because he controlled the separate funding from al-Qaeda. In January 2003, Muhammad Rais, Noordin and Azahari Husin moved to Bengkulu, where a group of JI members lived, including Asmar Latin Sani, who became the Marriott suicide bomber. The next stages of the operation took place in February 2003 when the explosives were transported from Dumai to Bengkulu via Pekanbaru,

Azahari secured the detonators with a new team member, Masrizal bin Ali Umar. also known as Tohir, another Ngruki graduate and a Luqmanul Hakiem teacher who was a close friend of Rais. After the explosives safely reached Bengkulu as unaccompanied baggage on an intercity bus, they were stored at the house of Sardona Siliwangi, another Ngruki student and JI member. At the time, Sardona, who was working with Asmar Latin Sani, opened a bank account in March 2003 to facilitate financial transactions for Noordin.

In late April 2003, Mohamed Ihsan aslo known as Gembrot and Idris, who was involved in the 2000 Christmas Eve bombings transported the explosives again. In May, he and Toni Togar, robbed a bank in Medan on 6 May to raise funds for the project. "Ismail", a Luqmanul Hakiem student who had previously worked with Rais and Noordin in the shock absorber repair shop in Bukittinggi,then received an email from Noordin asking him to pick up some packages from a man in Dumai. Ismail obliged, and the package turned out to be cash in Australian dollars, sent by Hambali via a courier.

A book that appears based in part on transcripts of Hambali’s interrogation says Hambali arranged for A$25,000 to be sent: A$15,000 for operational expenses, A$10,000 for Bali bomber families. Conboy, op. cit., p. 229. Hambali’s younger brother, Rusman Gunawan, who was arrested in Karachi in September 2003, testified Hambali had secured a promise of A$50,000 from an Noordin on how to bring the cash from Dumai to Lampung.

On 4 June 2003, in Lampung, the final team was put together: Noordin, Azhari, Ismail, Asmar Latin Sani, and Tohir. Noordin assigned the tasks and explained that he was in charge, Azhari was field commander and Ismail his assistant. Asmar and Tohir would be in charge of renting the house, buying the vehicles and getting the explosives to Jakarta. Asmar had agreed to be the suicide bomber. When they got to Jakarta, they split into two teams to survey four possible targets. Azhari and Ismail examined the Marriott and a Citibank branch; Noordin and Tohir looked at the Jakarta International School and the Australian International School. Eventually they decided on the hotel because of the American brand name and the fact that it was easy to reach. The bombing took place on 5 August.

They all drove back to Blitar with 25 kilograms of potassium chlorate and ten kilos of sulphur for bomb making, as well as a pistol and ammunition. Not long afterwards, another operative delivered 30 extra kilograms of TNT.

Around this time a pamphlet was circulating in jihadist groups that was a translation from Arabic into Indonesian of an article that first appeared in the al-Qaeda on-line magazine Sawt al-Jihad. Entitled “You Don’t Need to Go to Iraq for Jihad”, it was written in 2003 by a Saudi jihadist, Muhammad bin Ahmad as-Salim.^[8]

[edit] Suspects

Hambali: Riduan Isamuddin, better known simply as "Hambali," has been in the hands of U.S. intelligence agents since his arrest in Thailand in August 2002, and is accused of masterminding the 2002 Bali Bombing and the Marriott blast. According to interrogation reports seen by CBS News, Hambali was implementing plans to cause far more deaths using biological weapons, most likely Anthrax. Hambali, as al Qaeda's main connection in the Far East, was apparently trying to open an Al Qaeda bio-weapons branch plant. He told his U.S. interrogators he had been "working on an Al Qaeda Anthrax program in Kandahar," Afghanistan.^[9]

Azahari Husin The designs favoured by Malaysian Azahari Husin, known as the 'Demolition Man" for his bomb-making expertise, were evident in the use of a mobile phone to detonate the Marriott bomb and in the choice of ingredients in the chemical cocktail. If Azahari did not make the bomb, then its creator was following his manual, said one expert.^[10]

Noordin Mohammed Top is accused of helping finance the Bali blast and helping build the bomb used in the Marriott attack.^[11]

Mohammed Nazir Bin Lep is one of Hambali's key lieutenants, officials said. He allegedly transferred al Qaeda funds used for the bombing and 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.^[12]

Gempur Angkoro, whose alias is Jabir, is al-Ghozi's cousin and was one of Top's most trusted men; he, too, was killed in the April 29 raid. Jabir assembled the bombs used in the deadly attacks in Jakarta at the Australian Embassy in 2004 and the JW Marriott. (Jakarta Post, May 2)^[13]

Rusman Gunawan In October 2004 an Indonesian court convicted Rusman Gunawan (a/k/a "Gun Gun") for facilitating and/or aiding terrorism and sentenced him to four years in prison. Specifically, Gun Gun was found to have aided or facilitated the transfer of money that was ultimately used to finance the August 2003 bombing of the J.W. Marriott Hotel in Jakarta. Gun Gun was one of six Indonesian students arrested during raids in Pakistan and was a member of the Jemaah Islamiyah/Al Qaeda cell known as the Al Ghuraba cell. Nurjaman Riduan bin Isomuddin (a.k.a. Hambali,) the man who amongst other attacks, including the Bali Nightclub Bombings, was believed to have been involved in the J.W. Marriott bomb plot.^[14]

Sardona Siliwangi, 23, was the first person to be sentenced for the attack on the Marriott hotel. Sardona had been "legally and convincingly" proven guilty of an act of terrorism, said Judge Alzamar Sutopo at a court in the town of Bengkulu on Sumatra island. Prosecutors had recommended a 15-year sentence. The judges said Siliwangi stored at his home in Bengkulu six cartons of explosive materials left by Asmar Latin Sani. Latin Sani was the man who drove the van onto the hotel forecourt and died in the suicide attack. The explosives were later moved to the South Sumatra town of Lubuk Linggau before being taken to Jakarta. Another man is on trial in Jakarta for his alleged role in the Marriott bombing and several others are due to follow.^[15]

Air Setyawan, Luthfi Haidaroh and Urwahr were arrested in the Central Java city of Surakarta on July 26 2004 by Indonesia's Special Detachment 88 anti-terrorist squad, which is trained and equipped by the United States, Brig. Gen. Sunarko Danu Ardanto told AFP.^[16]

Yazid Sufaat

Luthi Haidaron

[edit] Al Qaeda Connection

Stuart A. Levey, the Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence in the United States, explained that the 2002 Bali bombing, and the Marriott Hotel bombing were financed by smuggling $30,000 in cash for each attack from al-Qaeda to allied terrorists in Asia, Levey said. By contrast, the 9/11 Commission estimated the September 11 2001 attacks cost between $400,000 and $500,000 over two years — at least some of which was deposited in foreign accounts and accessed by the plotters in the USA.^[17]

It was the simultaneous presence at al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan by militants from across South East Asia that facilitated many of the personal relationships that exist between JI and members of other violent South East Asian Islamist groups. These include the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, a secessionist movement fighting for a Muslim homeland in the southern Philippines, as well as several other Indonesian, Malaysian and Thai groups. The weight of evidence suggests that although some JI personnel might be inspired by the larger global mystique of figures such as Osama bin Laden, the South East Asian group remains operationally and organisationally distinct.^[18]

The Vice President of the United States Dick Cheney described the attack at a function Q&A in Lake Elmo, Minnesota;

You'll find for example, in various locations around the world there will be organizations like -- say in, Indonesia, the Jemaah Islamiyah, JI it's called for short. They've been responsible for the attacks on Bali that killed a couple of hundred Australians here at a tourist area a couple of years ago, blowing up the Marriott Hotel in Jakarta. Most recently they set off a truck bomb outside the Australian Embassy. JI is a branch of an extremist view of Islam that's sort of home-grown. They've got their own local issues they're concerned about, but they now have a relationship with al Qaeda. A senior guy in Indonesia named Hambali went to the training camps in Afghanistan that they ran back in the '90s, subsequently received funding from al Qaeda, went back then to Indonesia, and was behind some of the major attacks there. So you've got this sort of home-grown, but nonetheless affiliated, extremist operation going now in Indonesia. You'll find the same thing if you go to Morocco, where they had the attack in Casablanca; in Turkey, Istanbul, and so forth.

^[19]

[edit] Effects

The main Jakarta stock-market index tumbled 3.1 percent after the attack and its currency, the rupiah, lost as much as 2 percent of its value against the US dollar.^[20]

Australia issued a warning for its citizens to avoid all international hotels in Jakarta after intelligence found the capital could be under the threat of further attacks.^[1]