Bali nightclub Bombs
The 12th of October 2002 AD
Just after 11p.m. on October 12 2002 a terrorist wearing a back-pack packed with explosives walked into Paddy’s Pub in the Kuta district of Bali, a tourist night-spot. He detonated the device, causing mass panic. As the patrons and others in clubs nearby ran into the street a second killer detonated a van-bomb parked opposite Paddy’s Pub. Packed into plastic filing-cabinets the second far larger device contained more than a ton of explosives. Whether the plotters were highly skilled explosives experts or just ‘lucky’ is not known, but the chemical mixture with TNT accelerator and 94 detonators, produced a devastating thermobaric blast – a massive pressure wave and instantaneous conflagration.
In all 202 were killed, of whom 24 were British; nearly all people in their twenties and thirties in Bali for a good time. Others were appallingly injured, the thermal blast leaving many with horrific burns.
The bombers from the militant group Jemaah Islamiyah it seems had links with al-Qaeda, the attack being revenge for the American and wider Western war on terror and intervention in Muslim countries, and for the support for the East Timorese in their liberation struggle against largely Muslim Indonesia. Bali, where the vast majority of the population is Hindu, and which is famous as a rather hedonistic destination for Western tourists, was a soft target for the terrorists. There have been suggestions that elements of the Indonesian military may have had some involvement in the plot.
Three of the plotters were executed in November 2008. Others escaped retribution.
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