Jakarta back to work after bombs

By Karishma Vaswani
BBC News, Jakarta

Wreaths were placed outside the two bombed hotels in Jakarta

The Indonesian capital Jakarta is getting back to business after two US-owned luxury hotels were hit by twin bombs on Friday.

The attacks killed nine people and injured dozens more.

Police suspect they were the work of the Malaysian extremist Noordin Mohamed Top, believed to have links to the radical Islamist group Jemaah Islamiah.

Indonesia had been making progress against militants and held a peaceful presidential election earlier in July.

Reputation fears

The streets of Jakarta were filled with the usual cacophony of cars, trucks and motorcycles.

People in the city were getting back to business - the first day back at work after the deadly attacks that took place last Friday.

The crowds that had gathered around the bombing site over the weekend and on Monday's holiday to pay their respects were slowly thinning out.

Security has been tightened across the capital

Indonesians who work in the commercial district where the two luxury hotels were hit are keen that the country puts what happened behind them.

"We shouldn't get too much in shock, and we should get back on our feet again and convince the international world that we're a safe place to invest and to work," said one worker, calling herself Kania.

The big concern among many in Jakarta is how much of an impact the attacks will have on the reputation of the country.

Indonesia was just beginning to become a place that foreigners thought of as safe.

The series of bombings that took place across the archipelago in the early part of the decade had almost been forgotten.

Friday's events are likely to refresh those memories.