Questions raised on Jakarta security
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The International Crisis Group says preparation for the attacks would have involved several trips to the hotels. (Reuters: Lydia Ruddy)
Experts say the bomb attacks on two of Jakarta's luxury hotels would have required months of careful planning, raising questions about hotel security and whether a prevention was possible.
Indonesian police say two suicide bombers were behind the blasts at the city's Ritz-Carlton and Marriott hotels yesterday, in which nine people are confirmed to have died and up to 55 injured.
A senior police source has told an Indonesian newspaper that metal detectors went off when the bombers entered one of the hotels, but that the men were let through anyway.
Nobody suspected them, even a hotel security guard who let them through.
The metal detector sounded and they passed with their bags and suitcases, the quoted police officer said.
The International Crisis Group's Sidney Jones says preparation for the attacks would have involved several trips to the hotels.
"It would probably have involved maybe 10 to 15 people in total, several trips to the hotels to probe the weak points in the security," she said.
"It's not something that can be done on the spur of the moment. Nor can it be tied to a specific date; you do it when you're ready and when it's feasible."
Indonesian police say the bombers checked into the Marriott Hotel as guests and probably assembled the device in their room.
But the Marriott's head of security, Alan Orlob, says the hotel has extensive security checks and he is not sure how they made it through.
"Every vehicle that comes up to the hotel is inspected. All luggage is inspected with sophisticated explosive detectors," he said.
"We have walk through metal detectors at the hotel. Nobody can go into the hotel without being screened with a metal detector - It's like going into an airport."
Security probe
Foreign Affairs Minister Stephen Smith is leading a delegation of experts to Jakarta to lend support to Indonesia in the wake of the bombings.
He says while security arrangements were beefed up after the 2003 Marriott attack, which left 12 dead and 150 injured, security at the time of the attacks needs to be examined.
"The security arrangements for these hotels have been substantially improved since the attack upon the Marriott hotel in 2003, but obviously in the face of such a terrible event there are a couple of things that we want to do," he said in an interview on AM today.
"One, of course, in conjunction with Indonesian authorities we would want to satisfy ourselves about the arrangements on the actual day, but secondly to satisfy ourselves as to the improvements that were made to those security arrangements.
"In the face of these terrible circumstances in the cold light of day, there's a need to exhaustively examine all of these things and we will, together with the Indonesians, but the improvements to these hotels is obviously an issue that needs to be carefully examined."
Mr Smith says the Federal Government had no intelligence that could have predicted the attacks.
"The advice I have from officials is that there was no intelligence which would draw attention to these attacks but obviously as well that is now being exhaustively, exhaustively assessed," he said.
"We want to satisfy ourselves about that matter."
Travel risks
Mr Smith says the Government's advice on travelling to Indonesia has, for a considerable period of time, been that people carefully consider their need to go there.
He says this has primarily been due to the risk of a terrorist attack.
"But our travel advice is not a direction, it is advice. And Australians make their own judgement about what they do," he said.
"Yes, there are risks associated with going to Indonesia [and] we draw that to attention.
"But in terms of both the Indonesian Government, foreign governments and international business people doing business in Indonesia and working in Indonesia and getting the job done in Jakarta, these hotels and other hotels were regarded as places where substantial improvements had been made to security arrangements since the attack upon the Marriott in 2003."
The Government still holds grave concerns about the fate of three missing Australians, including Austrade official Craig Senger, Perth businessman Nathan Verity and an executive with the mining company Thiess Indonesia named Garth McEvoy.
One injured Australian, Scott Mirilles, is understood to have left Jakarta to seek further medical treatment in Singapore.
Likely event
Jim Truscott, a friend of Perth businessman Nathan Verity and a former SAS soldier, says the Australian Embassy phoned him to tell him Mr Verity had been killed.
Mr Truscott runs the crisis management company Truscott Crisis Leaders, and told today's AM that something like this was bound to happen.
"Well, it's all about taking risk. Providing you accept the risk environment, you then need to be prepared for the consequences," he said.
"This is a global conflict, not a conflict confined to Indonesia, but that fact that some 100 Jemaah Islamiah people were released only within the last couple of months, blind freddie could say that this was going to happen."
When asked if he expected the attacks, Mr Truscott said: "no doubt about it, no doubt about it."
He says business people in Indonesia should try to remain inconspicuous.
"You never make yourself a target," he said.
"You make yourself a grey man. So, you don't stay at those places associated with high profile international brands like the Ritz-Carlton or the Marriott."
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