President Bush connected Saturday's bombing of a disco in Bali, Indonesia to a \pattern of attacks"" associated with al Qaeda, but the incident doesn't clearly indicate an increasing threat of anti-American terror, analysts said.
Bush's statement, lumping the bombing with recent attacks on U.S. marines in Kuwait and on a French oil tanker off the coast of Yemen, came at the same time a letter purported to be from Osama bin Laden was discovered, praising the attacks.
Two Americans died and four were injured by the blast in Bali, according to the Associated Press.
""Clearly [the bombing] is a deliberate attack on citizens who love freedom, citizens from countries which embrace freedom. They're trying to intimidate us, and we won't be intimidated,"" Bush said Monday afternoon from the South Lawn of the White House. ""I think we have to assume it's al Qaeda.""
Although Bush spoke of the United States. as part of a community of countries under threat, evidence that the bombing in Bali had direct anti-U.S. implications is slight, said Jeffrey Hadler, associate professor of South and Southeast Asian Studies at UC-Berkley.
Hadler, who lived in Indonesia from 1998-2001, said the disco that terrorists targeted was well known for its racist policy of admitting foreign tourists while excluding Indonesians.
""They could have chosen a more American target, but they chose a white target, an international target,"" Hadler said. The bombing was more pointedly aimed at tourists in general and the Indonesian government, he said.
However, Muslims in Indonesia are not happy with U.S. foreign policy in Iraq, according to UW-Madison Southeast Asian Studies professor Kenneth M. George. George visited Indonesia twice in the last year and lived there for four months.
He said Indonesians react to aggressive U.S. foreign policy with ""profound doubt, skepticism and resentment,"" yet they have no quarrel with the American people. He said he did not yet believe the attacks were associated with al Qaeda.
Al Qaeda did not claim direct responsibility for the bombing or for the earlier attacks on the oil tanker and marines. But the letter purported to be from bin Laden congratulated ""the Islamic Nation on the bold heroic jihad operations that her children . . . the mujahedeen in Yemen against the crusader's oil tanker and in Kuwait against enemy troops and the American occupation.""
The bombing may not be a specific response to Bush's policy in Iraq, said UW-Madison political science professor Michael Barnett, but if Bush pursues military action, anti-American attacks will increase around the world.
""Let's expect the war against Iraq is going to increase the level of attacks against Americans,"" he said. ""There's nothing to get people more upset then to be engaged in what will be perceived as a pre-meditated, unprovoked attack on another Muslim/Arab country.\
