Car Bomb Kills 9 In Indonesia

A terror blast that killed nine and injured more than 160 outside Australia's embassy in Jakarta Thursday turned the country's election campaign on its head and could help conservative Prime Minister John Howard's bid for a fourth term in office, analysts said.

The blast flattened the embassy's gate, mangled cars on the busy commercial street, and shattered the windows of nearby high-rise buildings. Dazed survivors desperately tried to locate colleagues and relatives.

"I can't find my family," said Suharti, who had eight relatives working in the mission. "I am terrified. I don't know where they are."

Australian Embassy spokeswoman Elizabeth O'Neill said the staff was shocked by the force of the bomb and "the enormity of the crater" left behind.

"The police truck outside has been blown to bits. It's like the wind has been pushed out of you," O'Neill told Australia's Nine TV Network.

Police chief Gen. Dai Bachtiar said an initial investigation showed the blast was caused by a car bomb, but "we do not know whether anyone was in the car."

Police immediately blamed Jemaah Islamiyah, the Southeast Asian terror network that is linked to al Qaeda. The group has been accused in several deadly bombings, including the bombing of the JW Marriott hotel in the same neighborhood last year, in which 12 people were killed.

In recent years, Indonesia has been hit by a series of deadly bombings of Western targets by militants belonging to Jemaah Islamiyah. In 2002, 202 people — including 88 Australians — died in an attack on two nightclubs on the tourist island of Bali.

Bachtiar said Thursday's bombing bore the hallmark of Jemaah Islamiyah, similar to the Bali and Marriott blasts.

"We can conclude (the perpetrators) are the same group," he said.

Australian forensics experts who worked on those blasts traveled to Indonesia on Thursday.

The first two weeks of campaigning ahead of the Oct. 9 election have been dominated by domestic economic topics. National security is seen as a key issue, but was not a major point in campaigning.

That will change now, even though both main parties refused to make political capital out of the Jakarta blast.

The bombing "will echo loudly through the campaign," respected political reporter Laurie Oakes told television's Nine Network.

Analysts were divided on how the blasts would affect the election. Polls have Howard's administration and the opposition Labor Party running neck and neck, but Howard is considered stronger on national security than his Labor challenger, Mark Latham.

International affairs analyst Keith Suter said the bombing could enhance the Howard government's chances of clinching another three-year term.

"At this sort of time when people feel unsure, they prefer to stay with the government they know," Suter told Sky News.

Howard has been one of the staunchest allies of the U.S.-led war on terror and invasion of Iraq.

He sent 2,000 troops to the invasion and still has more than 800 military personnel stationed in or around Iraq. But he has vigorously denied his contentious foreign policy has made Australia more of a terror target.

Latham has pledged to withdraw most of the troops by Christmas if he wins office, while Howard says they must stay as long as they are needed.

Defense analyst Aldo Borgu, of the independent Australian Strategic Policy Institute think tank, said lawmakers likely would steer clear of trying to make any kind of campaign gain.

"The first party to (try to) take advantage of it and say we'll be tougher ... as soon as that happens then I think the electorate's going to punish whoever basically tries to politicize the issue," he told Sky News.

Latham announced late Thursday that Labor would suspend all campaigning for two days, but said he would take part in a televised debate with Howard scheduled for Sunday.

It was not clear if the blast was aimed at influencing the Australian election in the way Islamic extremists are believed to have tried to do when they blew up packed commuter trains on the eve of Spain's elections earlier this year, killing 191 people.

Shortly after the Madrid blasts, Spanish voters elected a Socialist administration that made good on its election pledge to withdraw all the country's troops from Iraq.

Howard vowed Thursday the bombing would not change his stance.

"This country will never have its position on issues like that dictated by terrorism," he told Seven News. "And the day any country surrenders decisions on these things to the dictates of barbarism and terrorism is the day a country loses control over its future."

Suter said if it was an attempt to turn voters against the prime minister as in the Madrid attacks, it was misguided.

"Here in Australia it is more likely, given the fact that we've just had this blast in Jakarta, that people would start looking toward the prime minister for leadership as opposed to thinking there's something wrong with the way that the prime minister has been talking up security issues in the last couple of years," he said.

"We haven't got the level of political cynicism directed toward the prime minister and he should be relatively safe in terms of his own political fortunes on this issue."

As recently as Tuesday, the State Department recommended "that Americans defer all non-essential travel to Indonesia" and urged "Americans who choose to travel to Indonesia despite this Travel Warning to observe vigilant personal security precautions; to remain aware of the continued potential for terrorist attacks against Americans, U.S.- or other Western interests in Indonesia."