2002 Bali bombings
Terrorist attacks took place on 12 October 2002 in the tourist district of Kuta on the Indonesian island of Bali. Bombings killed 202 people—including 88 Australians and 38 local Indonesians—and injured a further 209, making it the worst terrorist act in Indonesia's history.
Various members of Jemaah Islamiyah, an Islamist group, were convicted in relation to the bombings, including three who were sentenced to death. The attack involved the detonation of three bombs: a bomb vest worn by a suicide bomber; a large car bomb, both of which were detonated in or near popular Kuta nightclubs; and a third, much smaller device detonated outside the United States consulate in Denpasar, causing only minor damage.
On 9 November 2005, one of the top JI's bomb-makers, former Malaysian university lecturer Azahari Husin, was killed in a police raid on a house in Batu, East Java. Azahari was believed to be the technical mastermind behind the Bali bombings and several terrorist attacks in Indonesia during the early 2000s. On 9 November 2008, Amrozi bin Nurhasyim, Imam Samudra, and Mukhlas were executed by firing squad on the island prison of Nusakambangan. On 9 March 2010, Dulmatin, nicknamed "The Genius"—believed to have set off one of the Bali bombs with a mobile phone—was killed in a shootout with Indonesian police in Pamulang, South Tangerang.
Attack
At 11:05 p.m. on 12 October 2002, a suicide bomber inside the nightclub Paddy's Pub detonated an explosives vest, causing many patrons, with or without injuries, to flee into the street. Twenty seconds later, a second and much more powerful car bomb inside a white Mitsubishi van was detonated by another suicide bomber outside the Sari Club, a renowned open-air thatch-roof bar opposite Paddy's Pub.The bombing occurred during one of the year's busiest tourist periods in Kuta Beach, driven in part by many Australian sporting teams making their annual end-of-season holiday.
Damage to the densely populated residential and commercial district was immense, destroying neighbouring buildings and shattering windows several blocks away. The car bomb explosion left a crater.
The local Sanglah Hospital was ill-equipped to deal with the scale of the disaster and was overwhelmed with the number of injured, particularly burn victims. So many people were injured by the explosion that some of them had to be placed in hotel pools near the explosion site to ease the pain of their burns. Many had to be flown great distances, to Darwin and Perth, for specialist burn treatment.
A comparatively small bomb exploded outside the U.S. consulate in Denpasar, causing minor injuries to one person and minimal property damage. It was reportedly packed with human excrement and is thought to have exploded shortly before the two Kuta bombs.
An August 2005 report by the United States-Indonesia Society described the events as follows:
The investigators were thus able to recreate the bombers activities. Amrozi, Idris and Ali Imron had simply walked into a dealership and purchased a new Yamaha motorbike, after asking how much they could re-sell it for if they returned it in a few days. Imron used the motorbike to plant the small bomb outside the U.S. Consulate. Idris then rode the motorbike as Imron drove two suicide bombers in the Mitsubishi to the nightclub district in Kuta. He stopped near the Sari Club, instructed one suicide bomber to put on his explosives vest and the other to arm the vehicle bomb. The first bomber headed to Paddy's Pub. Idris then left the second bomber, who had only learned to drive in a straight line, to drive the minivan the short distance to the Sari Club. Idris picked up Imron on the Yamaha and the duo headed back into Denpasar. Idris dialed the number of the Nokia to detonate the bomb at the Consulate. The two suicide bombers exploded their devices. Imron and Idris dropped the motorbike at a place where it eventually attracted the attention of the caretaker.
The final death toll was 202, mainly comprising Western tourists and holiday-makers in their 20s and 30s who were in or near Paddy's Pub or the Sari Club, but also including many Balinese Indonesians working or living nearby, or simply passing by. Hundreds more people suffered horrific burns and other injuries. The largest group among those killed were Australian tourists, with 88 fatalities. On 14 October, the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 1438 condemning the attack as a threat to international peace and security.
Awards
There were many acts of individual heroism in the bombings' aftermath. Several of these received official recognition under Australia's honours and awards system, particularly in the Special Honours List for 2003.Timothy Britten, a Senior Constable with the Western Australia Police Force, and Richard Joyes were both awarded the Cross of Valour, Australia's highest civilian honour, for entering the burning remains of the Sari Club to free a badly injured woman from the wreckage; after rescuing her on the third attempt, both men then searched for other potential survivors until the increasing intensity of the flames and of secondary explosions made this impossible. Both men were aware of the possibility of being injured or even killed and indeed sustained several injuries during their efforts to rescue the woman and find other survivors.
Natalie Goold initially escaped from Paddy's Bar after the bombings but then went back into the burning building, sustaining burns to her right arm and hand, to rescue her friend Nicole McLean, who had been heavily injured by the blasts. After asking two men for their shirts to use as tourniquets for McLean's wounds, Goold secured McLean's transportation to a local hospital and stayed with her during their medical evacuation to Australia.
Robert Meredith and his group of friends were caught up in the bombing of the Sari Club; he was thrown onto his back and badly winded. Despite intense heat and flames, Meredith and his friends managed to help about ten other survivors escape by lifting them over a wall; while the wall ended up collapsing under people's weight, injuring Meredith's feet and depriving him of the already limited protection of his thong sandals, he managed to get to a staircase from where he helped yet more survivors get to safety. Meredith would ultimately be left with several burns and cuts to his feet.
Lauren Munro was also caught up in the Sari bombing, being rendered unconscious; when he came to, he pulled free an injured woman who had been trapped under roof beams, and carried her out of the building and over a wall of rubble. Munro helped several other people get over the same wall before re-entering the Sari Club and spending the next two hours carrying out many more injured people and helping to fight the fire. Ben Clohessy was also rendered unconscious by the blast that destroyed the Sari Club and also rescued or helped to rescue other survivors after regaining consciousness. Goold, Meredith, Munro, and Clohessy were all awarded the Star of Courage on 17 October 2003 for their respective actions.
Awards of the Commendation for Brave Conduct were made to, among other people, Hanabeth Luke. Luke was in the Sari Club with her partner Marc Gajado at the time of the second bombing, with the explosion throwing her to the ground. After managing to escape the now-burning building by climbing through its collapsed roof using severed electrical wire, Luke began a search for Gajado, during which she came across a badly injured Tom Singer. Singer was lying close to a burning car and Luke believed that he would be engulfed in flames if he remained there.
When Singer confirmed that he could not stand up independently, Luke helped him to his feet and supported him in walking away. Luke then tried to return to the Sari Club to resume looking for Gajado, but was persuaded by a friend that it was too dangerous to do so ; she thus went back to attending to Singer, helping other people to get him into a car to be taken to hospital. Singer died in hospital a month later. Separately from her Commendation for Brave Conduct award, a photograph of Luke helping Singer was published in news media around the world in the days after the bombings.
Kusitino 'Kossy' Halemai, a Wallis and Futuna-born Australian citizen who was managing the Bounty Hotel in Kuta at the time of the attacks, sheltered survivors in the immediate aftermath of the blasts. A makeshift triage area in the hotel's reception area was organised by Richard and Gilana Poore, with the couple also fielding phone calls from the media and from families trying to trace loved ones. After three days of this, the Poores flew to Richard's native New Zealand where they organised the collection of eighty boxes of medical supplies; they then returned to Bali with these supplies as well as two burns nurses. Halemai and the Poores were honoured with the Medal of the Order of Australia, with Gilana Poore's OAM being awarded on 26 January 2005, Halemai's OAM being awarded on 13 June 2005, and Richard Poore's OAM being awarded on 22 August 2005.
James Parkinson, an emergency nurse, worked alongside Doctor Hogg from Wollongong in the Denpasar Sanglah Hospital running the trauma centre for the bombing victims. After he disappeared in Africa and Europe for three years, the Governor General's department finally tracked him down and awarded Parkinson the Medal of the Order of Australia in 2005.