Search Continues for Clues in Jakarta Bombing

Police Are looking for ties between hotel bombing and terrorist networks.

ByABC News
July 18, 2009, 4:03 PM

JAKARTA, Indonesia, July 18, 2009— -- As mourners pray and leave flowers around the site, security forces comb through the wreckage of yesterday's twin bomb attacks that killed nine people.

According to health officials, four fatalities were foreigners. Dozens of civilians were injured, including at least eight Americans. Some of the wounded have been evacuated to Singapore for further medical treatment.

As Clarissa Ward reports on "World News," workers today continue to "painstakingly look for forensic evidence that might give a clue as to exactly what happened and who might be responsible."

The last video images before the bombings are from a surveillance camera at the JW Marriott, one of the two targeted hotels in a high-end business district frequented by foreigners and Indonesia's politically elite.

The grainy color-faded video captures a man wheeling his suitcase in front of the hotel before a blinding blast sends guests running for cover.

Within minutes, a second blast ripped through the restaurant of the Ritz-Carlton where people were eating breakfast.

"The first [thought] that went through my head was, typically with these attacks, there's sometimes a secondary explosion so the most sensible thing seemed to be to get out as fast as possible," said businessman Geoffrey Head, who was on the 23rd floor when he realized what happened.

Police say two bombers checked into the JW Marriott, in Room 1808, as guests on Wednesday and assembled the bombs there using homemade explosives.

Security at the two hotels has come into question. "It would have taken a very determined group of bombers to figure out, even though it was fairly secure, where the weak points were," said Sidney Jones, senior advisor for the Asia Program of the International Crisis Group.

No one has come forward to claim responsibility.

Police point to Noordin Muhammad Top, a Malaysian fugitive who heads a breakaway faction of Southeast Asian terrorist group Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), as their top suspect. With links to al-Qaeda, JI was responsible for the last major attack in Indonesia, in 2003 and also at the Marriott, where 12 people were killed.