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| Southeast Asia |
| Jakarta blast may be a sign that JI's regrouping |
| 2004-09-09 |
| Indonesia's police chief, Da'i Bachtiar, said two fugitive Malaysian bomb makers of the Jemaah Islamiyah terror group, wanted over the Bali blasts and a deadly attack last year on Jakarta's Marriott hotel, had been recruiting. Bachtiar said that the blast bore the hallmarks of Azahari Husin, who is being hunted with compatriot Noordin Mohammad Top. He added that early analysis from the blast site pointed to involvement of Jemaah Islamiyah remnants. "They have done new recruitments in the framework of launching new attacks," Bachtiar told reporters. He said intelligence from arrests made on the central island of Java indicated preparations for further attacks. Security analysts have repeatedly warned that despite a string of convictions against Jemaah Islamiyah members, Islamic militants remain a potent force in Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim-populated nation. "According to an analysis by a police unit tasked with tracing remnants of the Bali and Marriott bombings, there was information from groups arrested in Central and East Java which indicates that they will carry out more attacks," Bachtiar said. "We are orientating the investigation towards the remaining perpetrators of the August 2003 Marriott bombing and the Bali bombings who have not yet been arrested." Bachtiar added that while forensic examinations from the bomb site indicated similarities between the embassy attack and earlier bomb strikes, there were marked physical differences. "There are TNT elements and high explosives such as in the previous bombs," he said. "From information obtained, there was no big fire, it is different from the Marriott bomb," he said. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |