Terrorism in Indonesia: Jakarta hotels bombed
source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/indonesia/5849270/Jakarta-bomb-attacks-a-hist...
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- HardPower
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You probably heard about the terrorist attacks in Jakarta today. In terms of body count, it wasn't a very good showing by the Jemaah Islamiyah terrorists, who only killed 9 and wounded 52. But their objective isn't a body count - it is to, ahem, terrorize.
Hence why a hotel, and not a military checkpoint or political rally or whatever. Indonesia has a booming tourist economy, and the terrorists there want to scare travelers away. In fact, in the last decade, seems like most hotels in Indonesia have been bombed... Scared tourists will go to some other country now, and hotels will have to spend a buttload more money on security to try to calm those panicky travelers down. Rule number 4: If you're fighting someone in power, chaos hurts those in power, and thus helps you.
In fact, this is so many hotel attacks in a row that its hard to believe a sensible terrorist group is behind it. They even hit the same hotel they hit in 2003! This wasn't a very big operation - not too spectacular, and it's been done before. So there's not much terrorist street cred in carrying it out. bin Laden isn't calling these guys up to congratulate them.
Tourism in Indonesia isn't a huge business - only 6.5 million tourists last year bringing in $7.4 billion dollars. But that was just as memory of the Bali bombings and other attacks was fading from the rich Westerner's memory (its ok if you forgot about them too...). The Bali bombing in 2002 probably lost Indonesia half a million tourists, as it went from 5.0 million tourists and $4.3 billion down to 4.5 million tourists and $4.0 billion in revenue. So the spectacular attack cost Indonesia something like a half billion dollars in lost revenue, and probably double that including the damage to persons and property.
In comparison, Indonesia had 16,548 traffic fatalities in 2007. So 9 deaths is about 17 hours worth of car fatalities... not too terrorizing.
Hence why a hotel, and not a military checkpoint or political rally or whatever. Indonesia has a booming tourist economy, and the terrorists there want to scare travelers away. In fact, in the last decade, seems like most hotels in Indonesia have been bombed... Scared tourists will go to some other country now, and hotels will have to spend a buttload more money on security to try to calm those panicky travelers down. Rule number 4: If you're fighting someone in power, chaos hurts those in power, and thus helps you.
In fact, this is so many hotel attacks in a row that its hard to believe a sensible terrorist group is behind it. They even hit the same hotel they hit in 2003! This wasn't a very big operation - not too spectacular, and it's been done before. So there's not much terrorist street cred in carrying it out. bin Laden isn't calling these guys up to congratulate them.
Tourism in Indonesia isn't a huge business - only 6.5 million tourists last year bringing in $7.4 billion dollars. But that was just as memory of the Bali bombings and other attacks was fading from the rich Westerner's memory (its ok if you forgot about them too...). The Bali bombing in 2002 probably lost Indonesia half a million tourists, as it went from 5.0 million tourists and $4.3 billion down to 4.5 million tourists and $4.0 billion in revenue. So the spectacular attack cost Indonesia something like a half billion dollars in lost revenue, and probably double that including the damage to persons and property.
In comparison, Indonesia had 16,548 traffic fatalities in 2007. So 9 deaths is about 17 hours worth of car fatalities... not too terrorizing.
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- groups:
- Community, Terrorism, Hard Power, Indonesia
