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| Southeast Asia |
| 5 sought in connection with Bali bombings |
| 2005-10-05 |
| Indonesian police said Wednesday they were trying to locate five men from western Java with ties to radical Islamic groups as the investigation continued into the past weekendâs suicide bombings in Bali. But police and security analysts stressed it was too early to say if the chase for the five men â all of whom had links either to past bombings in Indonesia or militant Islamic groups â marked a breakthrough in the case. Since Saturday nightâs coordinated attack on a restaurant and a separate strip of seaside seafood cafes packed with diners, investigators have focused on the al-Qaeda-linked Jemaah Islamiyah group and two of its most-wanted Malaysian members, Azahari bin Husin and Noordin M. Top. Authorities have said they do not yet have proof of their involvement and have been focusing on the identities of the three suicide bombers involved in the attacks. But the two Malaysians have been linked to all of the major terrorist attacks in Indonesia in recent years and investigators have said the weekend attacks in Bali bore many of their hallmarks. The five militants police were searching for Wednesday were thought to be linked to a group that had worked with the Malaysians before. All five had at some point been either detained or questioned by police either in connection with last yearâs attack on the Australian embassy in Jakarta or the 2002 nightclub bombings in Bali, said Colonel Badrodin Haiti, the police chief of Banten province. All five, he said, had links to either Imam Samudra, the coordinator of the 2002 Bali attacks, which killed 202, or a group of west Java militants that took part in the September 2004 Australian embassy attack, which left 11 dead. But what has peeked policeâs interest is that all have gone missing since this past weekendâs bombings in Bali, Colonel Haiti said. âWe are still trying to find out where they were,â he said. âIf they had a good alibi as to where they were when the second Bali bombings happened they will be fine.â âThereâs a link between those people and Imam Samudra and [the] group of Australian embassy bombers,â he said. âBut police have never been able to prove if they had direct involvement in terrorism activity or the bombing [in Bali].â The five, whom police refused to identify, are thought to be linked to a Banten group descended from the militant Darul Islam movement, which mounted rebellions against Jakarta in the 1950s in an effort to make the Koran the law of the land. Iqbal, one of the suicide bombers involved in the 2002 Bali attack, was a member of the group, according to Sidney Jones, an analyst with the International Crisis Group and the leading expert on Jemaah Islamiyah. So too was the suicide bomber involved in last yearâs attack on the Australian embassy in Jakarta, which killed 11. Police, who have questioned 39 people as witnesses, also said Tuesday that they had detained two people in connection with Saturdayâs bombings in Bali, although they later backed away with a police spokesman calling the pair âpickpockets.â That news came as Muslim cleric Abu Bakar Bashir, who is accused of co-founding Jemaah Islamiyah, condemned the weekend bombings in Bali. Bashir received a 30-month sentence in March after being convicted of conspiracy in connection with the 2002 Bali bombings. âI really disapprove of bombings in non-conflict areas for whatever reason, including in Bali, because it can be almost certain that innocent and unknowing victims would fall,â Bashir said in a statement released by his lawyer. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |