IN JAKARTA
 
IT'S BEEN three days since a horrific tragedy hit Jakarta and while life has gone on, an air of trepidation still lingers in the air.
 
At the relatively-emptier malls and hotels, security does seem a little tighter — the guards or satpams are they are known here, are actually peering into women's handbags, instead of waving them through the metal detectors.
 
Everyone's talking about Friday's bombings — on television, in homes, over coffee and lunch — for the attacks took nine lives and injured over 50 others.

Some people are flocking to the site for a glimpse of the wreckage but the police and military are guarding the area tightly and not much can be seen from where the onlookers have to stand.
 
As police and government officials try to piece together what happened — how the suicide bombers rolled out their macabre plan, what security lapses took place and how they happened — the victims and their families are still coming to terms with the tragedy.
 
The 18 men who were at American business consultant James Castle's breakfast meeting at the Marriott are wondering if they were targeted specifically. While police have not released any conclusions, it appears to me that they are right.
 
The suspected suicide bomber  occupied a room at the hotel. It is not known if he and the network backing him knew about the meeting before he checked in on Wednesday. But hours before the meeting in the lounge, which saw its first participants stroll in around 7.15am, a sign had been placed outside the entrance to state that the meeting would be taking place.
 
The bomber decided to carry out his crime at 7.45am — with one bomb going off at the Marriot followed by another at the Ritz-Carlton barely two minutes later.

It was still relatively early in the morning and not that many people were around. This is why there were fewer fatalities than the 2002 Bali bombings that occured in a nightclub where 202 people died.
 
As cruel as this may sound, I wonder why the bombers — who must have done their cold-blooded calculations on how to inflict maximum damage — did not elect to do their evil deed at lunchtime?
 
If it had been after 11am, many more people would have been present in the hotels and the surrounding area — office workers going out for a bite, businessmen talking shop over lunch, ladies who lunch and so on.

As Singaporean eyewitness Thomas Thong told The Straits Times, there were only about 10 people in the Ritz-Carlton's restaurant when the explosion took place. Most of the hotel guests I spoke to after the explosion said they had just gotten up or were on their way to breakfast
 
But as terrorism expert Sidney Jones told Reuters, one piece of evidence to show that the bombings are linked to fugitive terrorist leader Noordin Top is the fact that they targeted "iconic Western symbols".

Besides bombing two five-star hotels, they also targeted a gathering of captains of industry in Indonesia, who were mostly foreigners.
 
In my 45-minute long interview with survivor Roy Widosuwito on Saturday afternoon, he told me it was a twist of fate that saved him.

Having not attended the meeting for a few weeks, he wanted to catch up with Mr Castle and chose to sit furthest away from the entrance. Those who did otherwise, especially the ones whose backs were facing the entrance, never knew what hit them.
 
Mr Widosuwito, an affable Dutchman in his 60s, said his condition was stable by Friday afternoon and he spent the rest of the day glued to television reports.

When footage of the supposed bomber making his way to the lounge came out, he realised that the bomb — homemade and filled with screws to inflict maximum hurt — would have been in the trolley bag the bomber was lugging.

"It exploded from a low point, that’s why I had a screw lodged in my right thigh and shrapnel in my left leg, instead of my arms and face being hit by the screws. That's why Max's leg was badly hurt," he said, referring to Dutchman Max Boon who was sitting near the entrance.

Mr Boon who is in his 30s, is the most severely-injured survivor. His left foot was amputated above the ankle and his lungs are injured. He is currently in Singapore being treated.
 
New Zealander Timothy Mackay was also near the door. He was apparently taken to hospital by a staff member at the Singapore embassy, who was passing by the area on his way to work.

His legs were badly maimed, his face bloody and his left eye ravaged, as a photo from Reuters that The Straits Times carried on Saturday confirmed. Mr Mackay died in hospital.
 
I got to the bomb site an hour after the explosions and police had already cordoned off the burgeoning crowd of journalists.

But after interviewing eyewitnesses, I managed to skip past security tape to stand next to the metal detectors at the Marriott around 5 metres to the entrance of the hotel lobby.

In my 10 minutes there before police shooed me away, I saw cracked glass across the façade of the hotel, a gaping hole in the wall shared by the hotel and the Mutiara plaza next door and then, six body bags taken out of the hotel at 11am. Two other yellow bags with body parts followed.
 
I also remember a voice from behind my ear, as medical personnel seemed to fumble with one body bag, as if it was too heavy.

"That's definitely a foreigner," said a man in Indonesian. I turned to ask him where he was from, but without another word, he slipped away.

Read more:
Bombs 'identical' to Bali
Bombers linked to JI