In coordinated bombings, suspected terrorists targetted two luxury hotels in the Indonesian capital Jakarta today, killing at least nine people and injuring 50 others, many of them foreigners.
"There were two explosions, one in the Marriott and one in the Ritz-Carlton," a police spokesman said.
Mostly foreigners stay at these two hotels. It is not yet known if any Indian was among the dead or injured.
"So far, nine people have been killed. Eight died at the scene and one in the hospital," the spokesman said, adding 14 foreigners were injured in the blast.
"There was a loud boom and I looked out of the window and saw people running and figured out that Ritz Carlton and the near by JW Marriott hotel had been targetted," visiting Indian filmmaker Renu Sharan, who was staying at another hotel across the two five star hotels, said over the phone.
Sharan and her husband Sharad, who directs Malay language movies, were in Jakarta to release their latest film.
An unexploded bomb was also found in a room of the Marriott hotel after the bombings, a senior official said.
Police said in Jakarta that "high explosive bombs" caused the two blasts in the upscale Mega Kuningan business district in the centre of the city at around 8:00 am local time.
Some windows of Ritz Carlton were blown out though Mariott seemed to have undergone little damage, reports said. Police have sealed off the area.
Meanwhile, a car bomb also exploded near a shopping complex in north Jakarta, two hours after two luxury hotels in the city-centre were bombed, reports said. It was unclear if anyone was killed in the third explosion.
The security officials said it was too early to say whether the blasts were the result of a militant attack like those that killed 12 people at the Jakarta Marriott in 2003 and more than 200 in Bali in 2002.
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who was re-elected for a second term in the mainly Muslim country last week, was "deeply concerned over this incident," his spokesman said.
The terror group Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) has been held responsible for a string of bombings on local and Western targets in Indonesia and other parts of Southeast Asia in recent years.
Antara News, a state-run agency, quoted a witness as saying he saw four foreigners among the wounded.
The Ritz-Carlton Hotel was to have accommodated soccer players from Manchester United, who are expected to arrive in Jakarta tomorrow.
