20 years after Bali bombing, ‘the ache does not dim’
Australian Assistant Minister for Foreign Affairs Tim Watts, carries a wreath during the commemoration of the 20th anniversary of the Bali bombing at the Australian Consulate in Denpasar, Bali Wednesday, Oct. 12, 2022.
Bali, The Gulf Observer: Hundreds gathered Wednesday on the Indonesian resort island of Bali to commemorate 20 years since a twin bombing killed 202 people, mostly foreign tourists, including 88 Australians and seven Americans.
Services were held simultaneously in several places in Australia and at Bali’s Australian Consulate in the city of Denpasar, where Australian survivors of the 2002 terrorist attack and relatives of the deceased were among the 200 in attendance to pay tribute.
Survivors are still battling with their trauma from the Saturday night in October 2002, when a car bomb in Sari Club and a nearly simultaneous suicide bomb at nearby Paddy’s Pub went off. That night remains seared into the national memories of Indonesians, Australians and many others.
After the attack, the bustling tourist area was quiet for a time, but it has since returned to a state of busy weekends, packed traffic and tourists. What used to be Sari Club is now a vacant lot, while Paddy’s Pub has resumed its operation 100 meters (300 feet) from its original location.
A monument stands less than 50 meters (yards) from the bombing sites with the names of the those who died inscribed on it. People regularly come to pray and place flowers, candles, or flags with photos of their loved ones.
The 2002 attack in Bali, carried out by suicide bombers from the al-Qaida-linked group Jemaah Islamiyah, started a wave of violence in the world’s most populous Muslim nation. Three years later, another bomb attack the island and killed 20 people. Numerous attacks followed, hitting an embassy, hotels, restaurants, a coffee shop, churches, and even police headquarters across the archipelago nation.
Two decades after the Bali bombings, counterterrorism efforts in the world’s most populous Muslim country remain highly active. Indonesia founded Densus 88, a national counterterrorism unit, in the wake of the attacks. More than 2,300 people have since been arrested on terrorism charges, according to data from the Center for Radicalism and Deradicalization Studies, a non-government Indonesian think tank.
