KUTA: Indonesia’s president said yesterday the “monstrous act of terror” in Bali 10 years ago failed to achieve its goal of fracturing the nation, ahead of an anniversary held under the shadow of a security threat.
Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s comments came as some 2,000 police and military personnel including snipers deployed across the island to ensure commemorations Friday pass peacefully after “credible information” of a threat to the ceremony.
Bali’s deputy police chief I Ketut Untung Yoga Ana said authorities were “ready to tackle any kind of terror threat during the commemoration event” which Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard will attend. The bombings in the predominantly Muslim nation on October 12, 2002, by the Al Qaeda-linked group Jemaah Islamiyah, opened an Asia front in the war on terrorism one year after the 9/11 attacks on the United States.
More than 200 people died in the blasts on Bali’s party strip, mostly Western tourists but also including 38 Indonesians.
Yudhoyono, who was security affairs minister at the time, said the atrocity succeeded in drawing the country closer together.
“Whatever the motivation and calculation of the terrorists, the Bali bomb attack did not produce its desired effects,” he said.
AFP
