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| Southeast Asia |
| 2 Wounded in Indonesia Mall Blast |
| 2002-10-24 |
| An explosive device blew up at a shopping mall in the city of Bandung on Thursday, slightly wounding two people, and police safely removed two others at a different mall. The devices were small and apparently intended to frighten rather than kill, Police Lt. Col. Masguntur Loupe told Metro TV, an Indonesian television station. There was no claim of responsibility, but the explosion took place as security has been stepped up around the country. The devices were similar to large firecrackers, said Rochyat, an assistant police inspector in Bandung, 125 miles southeast of Jakarta. Like many Indonesians, he uses only one name. There's a message there: "Us Islamists don't care about your lives, much less your thumbs. What we care about is having our way." Janitor Agus Sudarto, one of the injured, told El-Shinta radio station that he found the device — which looked like a gift package — inside a cleaning cart in the basement of the Bandung Supermall. It blew up as he was trying to move it to a trash can, first giving off a shower of sparks like a firecracker fuse, Sudarto said. His hand was slightly wounded. The other wounded man was also a janitor. "He's a little present for you, infidels..." Three hours earlier, two similar packages were discovered at another mall and were removed by bomb squad officers and defused. Officials said the devices contained low explosive. |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |