BALI, Indonesia — With the grim task of identifying charred and mangled bodies barely underway, Indonesia’s defense minister on Monday blamed Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida network for this weekend’s bombing that killed more than 180 people, including two Americans, and injured more than 300.
“The Bali bomb blast is linked to al-Qaida, with the cooperation of local terrorists,” Matori Abdul Djalil told reporters after a cabinet meeting in Jakarta, Indonesia’s capital. Three Americans are also listed among the injured in the attack. U.S. officials have not released identities of the Americans.
Djalil offered no evidence that al-Qaida was behind the car bombing Saturday night that turned a crowded Kuta Beach nightclub into an inferno in the world’s most populous Muslim nation. Most of the dead are foreigners.
In Washington, President Bush also fingered al-Qaida.
“I think we have to assume it’s al-Qaida,” he told reporters at the White House.
— Michael Dorgan and Jonathan S. Landay, Knight Ridder Newspapers (KRT)