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| Southeast Asia |
| Probable links between Bashir and Bali attacks |
| 2002-11-29 |
| Muslim cleric Abu Bakar Bashir was likely to have been involved in last month's deadly Bali blasts and more attacks are possible in the region, Indonesia's defence minister said on Friday. Mr Matori is the first high-ranking Indonesian official to implicate Bashir publicly in the Bali attack. Isn't that a nice development? And it's only been a month and a half... Mr Matori Abdul Jalil said the Al-Qaeda terror group was working to establish a 'vast network' in Indonesia and South-east Asia, and noted that the Oct 12 nightclub blasts that killed more than 190 people in Bali bore all the hallmarks of an Al-Qaeda-ordered assault. Abu Bakar Bashir, the alleged spiritual leader of the regional Al-Qaeda-linked terror group Jemaah Islamiah, was closely associated with the three top suspects in the Bali blasts and therefore must be involved, he said. That's logic. It doesn't count for much with the apologists trying to protect the Bad Guys in Indonesia... Until now, the Muslim cleric has not been officially linked to the Bali attacks, the worst act of terror since the Sept 11 attacks in the United States. He has denied involvement in the Indonesia bombings. Mr Matori said: 'We see that Hambali, Samudra and Amrozi are all students of Bashir. 'If an organisation has so many activists who are involved in bombings, then it is impossible that a leader has no knowledge of it. I am convinced that they were not acting on their own.' That's what I'd think, too, but then, I'm a decadent Westerner, and I'm influenced by those Dead White European Males... Bashir is in custody in a police hospital in Jakarta, reportedly suffering from respiratory and cardiac ailments. So far, 20 people have been detained in connection with the Bali attacks. However, police said only Samudra and Amrozi played direct roles, while the others were accomplices. I wonder how the apologists in the Indon parliament are going to contort themselves to explain it all away. |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |