At least three bombs went off within minutes of each other at popular restaurants eight miles apart, all packed with tourists. Some victims were found decapitated amid the carnage.

Security officials blamed Al-Qaeda’s local affiliate, Jemaah Islamiya (JI), which carried out the Bali bombings of three years ago in which 202 people died, including 28 Britons.

Its top bombmaker, Azahari bin Husin, who completed a doctorate at Reading University in the 1990s and is known in his native Malaysia as “Demolition Man”, is suspected of involvement in the latest bombings.

Indonesia’s president had warned that another attack might be imminent and a senior Indonesian counter-terrorism official had said only five days ago that the authorities were urgently seeking two of JI’s terrorist masterminds, including Azahari.

The first of last night’s explosions tore through the threestorey Raja’s restaurant at Kuta Square in the heart of Bali’s tourist area at about 7pm.

Daniel Martin, a British tourist who was in a shop next door, said he heard a “thunderous boom” and all the windows blew out.

He rushed outside to find people lying in the street with serious injuries. “There was thick smoke for a few minutes afterwards but there didn’t seem to be any fire,” he said.

“People were clambering onto the roof of the restaurant — they were climbing out and screaming and jumping down to the street . . . It was just chaos.”

Shortly afterwards two bombs went off in open-air seafood restaurants on Jimbaran beach, where holidaymakers were sitting with their feet in the sand at informal tables set up by young cooks who were serving cheap fresh fish and cold beer.

“I helped lift up the bodies,” said Wayan Kresna, an Indonesian witness. “There was blood everywhere.”

Dan Delhomme, from Stevenage, Hertfordshire, said he had been less than 50 yards from one of the bombs and had heard both blasts, one 25 seconds after the other. “We were the first out of there but we saw two wounded by the roadside,” he said.

Police later said they had found three unexploded bombs in Jimbaran. They had apparently failed to go off after the security forces hastily shut down the island’s mobile telephone network following the first blasts.

Explore UK News

• Crime News

• Education News

• Health News

• Science News

• Scotland News

Times Recommends

• Anne Darwin's performance of a lifetime
• Renaissance for canals as new boaters come aboard
• Case study: forced to marry a cousin at 17