10 Dead, Dozens Injured In Jakarta Hotel Blast

The blast damaged five floors of the American-owned hotel, shattering glass and damaging cars parked outside, the BBC News Online said as flames and thick clouds of smoke could be seen billowing from the ground floor of the building.

The badly burned bodies of two people, both appearing to be males, lay on the driveway in front of the office building next to the hotel awaiting an ambulance to carry them away, an Agence France-Presse (AFP) reporter at the scene said.

Thirty-four of the injured were rushed to the Jakarta Hospital and 26 others were sent to the nearby MMC hospital, including one foreign male, ElShinta radio reporters on the ground said.

"One of my windows was shattered by the force (of the blast) and I live on the 30th floor. We took the staircase to descend," Madina Sar-Diarra, who lives in an apartment at the top of the hotel, told AFP.

"It was a panic and once downstairs, I saw several injured people, especially cooks of the restaurant, covered in blood."

National Police Detective Chief Erwin Mappaseng told AFP at the scene that the blast "was caused by a car bomb."

Bachtiar also confirmed that the blast was caused by a car bomb, a multipurpose, Indonesian-assembled "Kijang" van.

He told a press conference that "it is believed that the bomb was on board that Kijang car," declining to speculate whether the blast was due to a "suicide" bombing.

"There were human body parts around the vehicle but it cannot be ascertained as to whether they belonged to a perpetrator or to victims," Bachtiar said.

However, the BBC quoted the governor of Jakarta, Sutiyoso, as saying the explosion was "very likely" to have been carried out by "a suicide bomber."

Indonesia’s defense minister Matori Abdul Jalil said earlier that the explosion was caused by a bomb, adding that the blast at the hotel was the work of terrorists, but declining to point the finger at the Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) group.

"I cannot say it is the JI … but what is clear is that the arrests of two or three JI members does not mean terrorism has ended," the minister argued.

The blast came just two days before the expected verdict in the trial of a key suspect in last October’s devastating Bali bombing, which killed 202 people, mostly Western vacationers.