JAKARTA (Reuters) – Investigators were sifting  through two bomb-damaged luxury Indonesian hotels yesterday,  for clues to those behind suicide attacks that shattered four  years of stability in the world’s most populous Muslim nation.

Although officials could not say who they believed was  responsible for Friday’s attacks, suspicion is pointing toward  Jemaah Islamiah (JI), the radical militant Islamist group  responsible for a string of deadly attacks that seemed to end  in 2005.

“It has the signature of our ‘friends’,” said a retired  Southeast Asian police officer now focused on counterterrorism  in the region.

The bombers struck the JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton, luxury  hotels popular with businessmen and diplomats and considered to  be among the most secure buildings in the capital.

Police told a news conference yesterday that nine people  were killed and 53 wounded in the blasts, revising a previous  death toll after investigators had found it difficult to  identify some victims from the remains.

“Of the dead, we believe that three we haven’t yet  identified include the suicide bombers,” Foreign Minister  Hassan Wirajuda said earlier.

The casualties included citizens of Indonesia, the United  States, Australia, South Korea, the Netherlands, Italy,  Britain, Canada, Norway, Japan and India.

The blasts are a severe blow for President Susilo Bambang  Yudhoyono, who was re-elected earlier this month in a landslide  victory on the back of strong growth in Southeast Asia’s  biggest economy.

After being rocked by a string of attacks against  Westerners in the first part of the decade, Indonesia has been  widely credited with successfully tackling militant groups.

Radical cleric Abu Bakar Bashir, who was alleged to have  once headed JI, said the bombs were “a warning from God to  Indonesia for not respecting God’s law.”

“Those who were involved were infidels or apostates, who  wanted to impede the jihad in Indonesia,” he said in a  telephone text message to Reuters.

Questions will now be asked how supposedly tight security  was so easily by-passed.

Police said the bombers had checked into the Marriott as  paying guests on Wednesday and had assembled the bombs in their  room. A third bomb was found and defused in a laptop computer  bag on the 18th floor.

A police spokesman told reporters a metal detector had  beeped when a bomb hidden inside a laptop bag passed through  the scanner, but the bomber had said it was a laptop and the  security guards had let him go through.