Mid-Morning Bombs and Gunfire

ALDI Tardiansyah, a security guard at the Jalan Thamrin Starbucks caf in Central Jakarta, was surprised when the man in front of him suddenly grabbed his right hand and tried to give him a bear hug that Thursday morning two weeks ago. Aldi's surprise turned to shock when he spotted a bomb attached to the man's midsection. "He then pushed the button on that bomb and I heard a very large explosion," Aldi recounted to Tempo at his home in Bogor last week.

Although he managed to take a step back to avoid being hugged by a total stranger, Aldi was nevertheless thrown by the blast. His body went crashing into a glass wall of the caf. He injured his left hand and shards of glass embedded his body. Aldi saw the caf filled with black smoke and customers running out of the building. After helping three customers to leave the premises, 17-year-old Aldi, who had only started his security guard job two weeks earlier, finally fell unconscious. He was later taken to Abdi Waluyo Hospital in nearby Menteng area.