The Horror Returns

Once more my thoughts are with the people of Bali, whose peaceful island has again been so senselessly attacked.

I had been thinking of Bali a lot last week anyway, with October coming up, and with it the anniversary of the 2002 bomb I was so lucky to escape. I was stunned to wake up on Saturday and hear news of these latest blasts. Thankfully the devastastion hasn't approached the scale of the massive Sari Club car bomb, but the blackened bodies, missing limbs and grieving friends are all too familiar. As was, sadly, the timing of the attack - at the busiest time on Saturday night - and the failure of emergency services to reach the sites due to the traffic-packed single track roads. And again, although the attacks were ostensibly designed to target Western tourists, the majority of the victims were Indonesian.

I have found myself oddly fascinated by the published photographs of the bombers' severed heads - trying to decipher that strange kind of serenity on their faces. You wonder what was going through their minds, at this moment when they decided to go ahead with their plan to kill those unfortunate enough to be sitting nearby. Only the icy stare and barely-concealed sneer of the second bomber gives any clue that this you are looking at a gallery of murderers.