Posted on 12/20/2004 4:35:45 AM PST by angkor
A grenade has been found near the Hilton Hotel in Jakarta, just days after the Australian government warned of possible attacks on the hotel chain.
But police said the grenade was old and inactive, and had been in the hotel compound for some time.
Last week Australia said it had "credible information" that terrorists could be targeting Indonesia's Hiltons.
The unusually specific remark caused the three hotels in the Hilton chain to increase their security measures.
The grenade was found near a fence surrounding the Jakarta Hilton, according to Emeraldo Parengkuan, the hotel's public relations director.
A gardener is said to have found the device on Monday morning, inside a rusty tin can.
"The grenade was not active and was corroded," police spokesman Paiman told Reuters news agency.
"There is a possibility it was there before the Hilton was built," he added.
Travel advisory
Last Wednesday the Australian government warned that terrorists could be preparing to carry out an attack in Indonesia, possibly targeting a Hilton hotel.
The day before, Australia's Foreign Affairs Department also issued a travel advisory to Australians, saying it continued to receive reports that terrorist groups in the region were planning attacks on a range of targets in Indonesia.
Australians were advised to avoid all non-essential travel to Indonesia over the Christmas and New Year period.
Indonesia has been hit by a series of terrorist attacks in the last few years, including the 2002 Bali bombings.
The most recent attack was on the Australian embassy in Jakarta in September, which killed nine people, including a suicide bomber.
Most of the larger hotels have multiple cordons of armed guards, metal detectors and wanding, eyeball checks of luggage and briefcases. They also have automobile checkpoints well away from the front doors, where passengers are wanded, trunks are eyeballed, and the undercarriage is inspected with a mirror. You get no impression from the guards with M16s, H&Ks, and Galils that they wouldn't hesitate to blow your head off.
The Aussie Embassy was vulnerable because it sat directly adjacent to a main road. Unlike the U.S. Embassy which also is on main road but is buttoned up with a huge wall of barbed wire, armed guards, a Humvee mounted machine gun, and a dumptruck which is parked in front of the gate all night.
Night! zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz....
Ping
Whether it was old or not, I'm glad they found it.
I took my student excavating into an old WWII Japanese cave. There are still munitions left there. But that was in the jungle. Jakarta is city. Hmmm.
You're a brave soul, Jemian. Seeing munitions of any kind would scare me.
This "old grenade" actually is plausible. Another 5-star hotel in Jakarta, the Hotel Borobudur, backs directly up to a small Army garrison at its rear fence.
The Borobudur is also probably the safest hotel in Jakarta, since it's jointly owned by a Suharto crony who's still very influential; the Army; and the Ministry of Finance. These are three entities that you really don't want to mess with in Indo.
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