2003 Marriott Hotel bombing

On 5 August 2003, a suicide bomber detonated a car bomb outside the lobby of the JW Marriott Jakarta hotel, killing 12 people and injuring 150. Eleven of those killed were Indonesian and one was a Dutch national. The Marriott was regarded as a Western symbol and had previously been used by the United States embassy for events. The hotel closed for five weeks and reopened on 8 September 2003.

Two weeks before the attack, Indonesian police received a tip from a militant captured in a raid in Semarang that bomb-making materials were being moved to Jakarta; drawings of potential attack sites in the city were also found during that raid. The bomb vehicle, a Toyota Kijang purchased on 20 July 2003, was loaded with explosives and driven through the hotel's taxi stand before detonating near the lobby. CCTV footage showed a security guard approaching and briefly speaking with the driver shortly before the blast; it remains unclear whether the explosion was accidental, remotely triggered, or set off by a prematurely activated timer. Indonesian police said the bomb used a chemical mixture and detonation method (mobile phone-triggered) similar to that used in the 2002 Bali bombings, and that identification numbers had been scraped from the vehicle in both cases. The severed head of Asmar Latin Sani, 28, from West Sumatra, was found on the building's fifth floor and identified by two jailed Jemaah Islamiyah members who said they had recruited him. A charred battery recovered from the bombing was reported to resemble ones used in a series of Christmas Eve 2000 church bombings that killed 19 people.

On 11 August 2003, al-Qaeda claimed responsibility for the attack via Al Jazeera, singling out Australia in its statement. Jemaah Islamiyah, a group affiliated with al-Qaeda, was alleged to have carried out the bombing; Indonesia's Minister of Defense, Matori Abdul Djalil, said the bombers had trained with al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan and linked them to a Semarang-based group. A 2006 International Crisis Group report detailed planning stages, including the transport of explosives from Dumai to Bengkulu, a May 2003 bank robbery in Medan to raise funds, and a June 2003 meeting in Lampung where the final operational team—including Noordin Mohammad Top, Azahari Husin, and Asmar Latin Sani as the designated suicide bomber—divided tasks and selected the Marriott over other surveyed targets, including a Citibank branch and two schools.

Several individuals were prosecuted in Indonesian courts. Muhammad Rais was convicted in May 2004 of violating anti-terrorism laws for transporting explosives used in the bombing and was sentenced to seven years in prison. Rusman Gunawan was sentenced in October 2004 to four years for facilitating and aiding terrorism after transferring funds used to finance the attack. Sardona Siliwangi, described as the first person sentenced for the attack, was convicted of terrorism for storing explosives at his home in Bengkulu and was sentenced to ten years in prison. Other alleged participants, including Riduan Isamuddin (Hambali) and Mohammed Nazir Bin Lep, were held at Guantanamo Bay; Majid Khan pleaded guilty in 2012 to taking part in the bombing. The attack affected Indonesian markets, with the Jakarta Stock Exchange falling 3.1 percent and the rupiah losing value against the US dollar, and prompted Australia to warn its citizens to avoid international hotels in Jakarta.