Terror Group Linked To Hotel Blast

As they surveyed damage today and sifted debris for evidence, Jakarta police admitted they knew before the blast that an attack might be imminent, and even that the downtown Marriott Hotel might be the target, reports CBS News Correspondent Richard Roth.

Documents seized in an anti-terror raid last month had included the hotel on a list of potential targets prompting a move to beef up security, police said.

The powerful car bomb exploded just outside the security zone that was supposed to protect the building, officials told CBS' Roth.

Attackers used a mobile phone to detonate the car bomb at Jakarta's Marriott Hotel, the same method used by bombers on the tourist island of Bali last fall, police said Wednesday.

The terrorist group Jemaah Islamiyah apparently claimed responsibility Wednesday for the deadly bombing, in which as many as 14 were killed and nearly 150 injured.

Other similarities to the Bali blast, including the use of the same types of explosives in both attacks, could connect the al Qaeda-linked regional terror group to Tuesday's carnage, authorities said.

As Indonesia's top security minister Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono on Wednesday warned of more terrorist attacks in the vast archipelago, police revealed that they seized documents last month showing terrorists had planned to target the area around the hotel.

Jemaah Islamiyah allegedly claimed responsibility in remarks published by Singapore's Straits Times newspaper.

"This is a message for…all our enemies that, if they execute any of our Muslim brothers, we will continue this campaign of terror in Indonesia and the region," the paper quoted an unnamed Jemaah Islamiyah operative as saying.

It couldn't be immediately determined if the claim was authentic.

The blast came two days before a verdict in the trial of a key suspect in the Bali bombings, which killed 202. Amrozi bin Nurhasyim, an alleged Jemaah Islamiyah operative, faces a possible death sentence if convicted.

Amrozi reacted with joy over the Marriott attack. He grinned and yelled out, "Bomb!"

The alleged mastermind of the Bali blasts, Imam Samudra, shouted, "I am happy, especially if the perpetrators were Muslims."

The Marriott — a frequent venue for U.S. Embassy functions and a popular destination for foreigners — was transformed into a bloody inferno when a vehicle packed with explosives blew up on the driveway leading to its front entrance around midday.

The Red Cross in Jakarta put the death toll at 14. But Health Minister Achmad Suyudi said that there were only 10 confirmed deaths.

The minister said 147 people had been wounded, including two Americans.

Officials said RDX and TNT, common high-yield military explosives, were found at the scene. Both explosives were also used in the Bali bombings.

National police chief Gen. Da'i Bachtiar said the bombers had tried to erase serial numbers on the vehicle's engine and chassis, just as had been done in the Bali car bomb. However, police were able to retrieve all the necessary numbers, he said.

Mappaseng said it was too early to conclude that the evidence constituted a definitive link between the Marriott and the Bali blasts. But Bachtiar said the similarities have led police to focus their investigation on Jemaah Islamiyah.
A police spokesman said that the documents pointing to the Marriott were seized in the central Java town of Semarang last month, when police arrested seven alleged members of the Jemaah Islamiyah terrorist group.

Security forces had increased patrols in the Marriott area in response to the seizure but the precautions weren't enough to prevent the suspected suicide attack, which underscored the continuing threat of terrorism in the world's largest Muslim nation.

Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said his government had acquired intelligence in the hours after the bombing that there could be more terrorist attacks in Indonesia in the coming days. He did not say what the intelligence was.

The Chase Plaza building in Jakarta, which house JP Morgan Chase Bank, was evacuated Wednesday morning following a bomb threat there phoned in to a tenant in the building. No further details were immediately available.

Jemaah Islamiyah is a shadowy group said to be fighting to install a pan-Islamic state in Southeast Asia

Sources tell CBS News that the so-called architect of the Sept. 11 attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, has told his U.S. captors that al Qaeda has bankrolled and trained Jemaah Islamiyah terrorists.

But intelligence sources say Mohammed has also called the Indonesian group "parochial" — with no ambition to attack the U.S. directly.