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THENATIONALSEARCHANDRESCUEAGENCYOFINDONESIA—THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Part of the wreckage that BASARNAS identified of the missing Trigana Air Service flight that crashed in Oksibil, Papua, Indonesia, is seen. ByAlfianKartono The Associated Press JAYAPURA, INDONESIA An airplane with 54 people on board that crashed in the mountains of eastern In- donesia was carrying nearly half a million dollars in gov- ernment cash for poor fam- ilies to help offset a spike in fuel prices, an official said Monday. Smoldering wreckage of the Trigana Air Service turboprop plane was spot- ted from the air Monday morning in a rugged area of the easternmost province of Papua, rescue officials said. There was no immediate word of any survivors from Sunday's crash, which hap- pened in bad weather. Four postal workers aboard the plane were es- corting four bags of cash to- taling $468,750 in govern- ment fuel aid, Franciscus Haryono, the head of the post office in Jayapura, the provincial capital, told The Associated Press. The ATR42-300 twin turboprop plane was fly- ing from Jayapura to the city of Oksibil when it lost contact. Transportation Ministry spokesman Julius Barata said there was no in- dication that the pilot had made a distress call. The cash from the So- cial Affairs Ministry was to be distributed among poor people in remote areas to cushion the jump in fuel costs, Haryono said. "They were carrying those bags (of cash) to be handed out to poor people in Oksibil through a post of- fice there," Haryono said. President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo's administration raised fuel prices late last year and slashed govern- ment subsidies, a move the government says will save the country billions of dol- lars but has already sparked angry protests around the country. Officials said three search planes spotted the wreckage about 7 miles from Oksibil. Search and rescue operations involv- ing about 10 aircraft were halted Monday evening because of darkness and would resume early Tues- day, said Heronimus Guru, deputy operations director of the National Search and Rescue Agency. The plane was carrying 49 passengers and five crew members on a scheduled 42-minute flight. Five chil- dren, including two infants, were among the passengers. "Smoke was still bil- lowing from the wreckage when it was spotted by a plane search," said Henry Bambang Soelistyo, the chief of the National Search and Rescue Agency. He said bad weather and rugged terrain were hampering ef- forts to reach the wreck- age, located at an altitude of about 8,500 feet. Plane debris seen; carried 54 people, government cash INDONESIA By Jerry Harmer and Anusonadisai Nattasuda The Associated Press BANGKOK A bomb ex- ploded Monday within a central Bangkok shrine that is among the city's most popular tourist spots, killing at least 18 people and injuring more than 100 across a hectic intersection surrounded by five-star ho- tels and upscale shopping malls. With a powerful flash caught on security video and a boom heard blocks away, the blast from the im- provised explosive device scattered body parts across Rachaprasong intersection, spattered blood, blasted windows and burned mo- torbikes to the metal. It exploded during evening rush hour as the area was filled with tourists, office workers and shoppers. "Suddenly there was a big boom, and the whole room just shook, like some- one dropped a wrecking ball on top of our ceiling," said Pim Niyomwan, an English instructor working on the eighth floor of the building right next to the shrine. "The whole build- ing just shook. My four stu- dents were hysterical." Video shortly after the blast depicts a scene of shock and desperation: people running for their lives and crying amid the debris. An emergency worker in an ambulance, frantically pounding the chest of a victim. No one immediately claimed responsibility for the bombing. "Those who have planted this bomb are cruel," said national police chief So- myot Poompummuang. "They aim to kill because everyone knows that at 7 p.m. the shrine is crowded with Thais and foreign- ers. Planting a bomb there means they want to see a lot of dead people." At least 18 people were confirmed dead and 117 injured, according to the Narinthorn emergency medical rescue center. The dead included Chinese and a Filipino, Somyot said. As a single, devastat- ing blow to this Southeast Asian metropolis, Mon- day's bombing has no equal in recent history, though Thailand is no stranger to violent attacks. A more- than-decade-long insur- gency by southern Muslim separatists has left more than 5,000 dead far from the capital. In Bangkok, po- litically charged riots cen- tered on this very intersec- tion in 2010 killed more than 90 over two months. Police said the bomb was made with a pipe wrapped in cloth. Police said it was too soon to determine the motive. "We still don't know for sure who did this and why," Deputy Prime Minis- ter Prawit Wongsuwon told reporters. "We are not sure if it is politically motivated, but they aim to harm our economy and we will hunt them down." The bomb detonated at Erawan Shrine, which is dedicated to the Hindu god Brahma, but is extremely popular among Thailand's Buddhists as well as Chi- nese tourists. Although Thailand is predominantly Buddhist, it has enormous Hindu influence on its re- ligious practices and lan- guage. The shrine, adjacent to a five-star hotel, is at the in- tersection of two major ar- teries in the city. Throngs of tourists come there to pray at all hours, lighting incense and offering flow- ers purchased from rows of stalls set up on the side- walk along the shrine. The site is a hubbub of activ- ity, with quiet worship- pers sometimes flanked by Thai dancers hired by those seeking good for- tune, while groups of tour- ists shuffle in and out. Bangkok has been rela- tively peaceful since a mil- itary coup ousted a civil- ian government in May last year after several months of sometimes violent political protests against the previ- ous government. Anusit Kunakorn, secretary of the National Security Council, said Prime Minister Pra- yuth Chan-ocha, the for- mer army chief who orches- trated the May 2014 coup, was closely monitoring the situation. At the same time, the military government has tightly controlled dissent, arresting hundreds of its opponents and banning protests. Tensions have risen in recent months, with the junta making clear that it may not hold elections until 2017 and wants a constitution that will allow some type of emergency rule to take the place of an elected govern- ment. Stirring the pot has been exiled former Prime Min- ister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was ousted in a 2006 coup. It was his sister Yin- gluck Shinawatra who was ousted as prime minister last year. Last week, Thaksin posted a message on You- Tube urging his follow- ers to reject the draft con- stitution because he said it was undemocratic. The draft charter is supposed to be voted on next month by a special National Re- form Council. If it passes, it is supposed to go to a public referendum around January. Another source of recent tension is the annual mil- itary promotion list, with the junta's top two leaders — Prime Minister Prayuth and Deputy Prime Minister Prawit — widely believed to be supporting different candidates. THAILAND Ba ng ko k bo mb in g at b us y shrine kills 18, hurts 117 MARK BAKER — THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Police investigate the scene at the Erawan Shrine a er an explosion in Bangkok, Thailand, on Monday. By Lolita C. Baldor The Associated Press JOINT BASE LANGLEY-EUS- TIS, VA. Faced with esca- lating aggression from Rus- sia and China, the Pentagon is planning to increase its use of drones by about 50 percent over the next sev- eral years, using the Army and civilian contractors to put more of the unmanned aircraft in the air. The decision to add Army and civilian-operated mis- sions to the mix was trig- gered because the Air Force — which had been running about 65 combat air patrol missions a day — asked to decrease that number to 60 because of stress on the force. But 60 patrols don't come close to meeting the demands of top military commanders facing grow- ing security threats around the world. Senior U.S. officials said that while drones have been used largely to target ter- rorists and collect intelli- gence over combat zones, those needs may shift in the coming years. Top military leaders, in- cluding the incoming chair- man of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Joseph Dunford, have named Russia as the nation's most serious secu- rity threat. And China's ris- ing military power and is- land-building program in the South China Sea have increased tensions and prompted a greater demand for U.S. surveillance and in- telligence across the Pacific. One senior defense offi- cial said Pentagon leaders are taking those security challenges into account as they decide how armed and unarmed drones will be used across Europe and the Pacific. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't au- thorized to discuss the is- sue publicly. Pentagon leaders have been wrestling with the problem for some time, as the need for more airstrikes and surveillance by drones over Iraq and Syria to battle the Islamic State group off- sets a decline in unmanned flights over Afghanistan as the war there winds down. Under the plans laid out by senior defense officials, the Air Force would con- tinue to provide 60 daily drone missions, while the Army would conduct about 16, and U.S. Special Oper- ations Command and civil- ian contractors would do up to 10 each. "It's the combatant com- manders, they need more. They're tasked to do our nation's business overseas so they feel that stress on them, and it's not getting better," said Air Force Maj. Gen. J.D. Harris, Jr., vice commander of Air Combat Command at Joint Base Langley-Eustis. "There's just not enough of the Air Force to go around." The civilian contrac- tors would fly surveillance drones, not the armed air- craft. But senior defense of- ficials said they need at least a small contractor contribu- tion in order to reach the to- tal of 90 combat air patrols per day. The key unanswered questions, however, are how the Pentagon will pay for the additional patrols and how the military will sort out and analyze the grow- ing torrent of data pour- ing in. Officials said some of the costs could be borne by war funding — the overseas contingency operations in a separate account approved by Congress. The account funded some of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as some counterterror- ism operations in the Mid- dle East and Africa. MILITARY Pentagon plans to increase drone flights by 50 percent in near future CLIFF OWEN — THE ASSOCIATED PRESS FILE Then-Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Joseph Dunford, Jr. testifies during his Senate Armed Services Committee confirmation hearing to become the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, on Capitol Hill in Washington. 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