Jakarta, 23 Nov. (AKI) - Indonesian police have arrested three men suspected of involvement in the 2004 bombing of the Australian embassy in Jakarta and of links to a top al-Qaeda-linked terrorist suspect. The men - identified as Fatkhurrahman, Bukhori and Yasin Al-Reza - were arrested separately in Pekalongan, in Central Java, on 17 November, a Jakarta police spokesperson said on Wednesday. He declined further comment, but said that under anti-terror laws the suspects could be detained for seven days and were being interrogated in the capital. The Australian embassy attack on 5 September, 2004 killed 12 people, including the bomber.According to local newspaper Indo Pos, the detainees are thought to be linked to fugitive Malaysian Noordin Top, considered one of the top figures in recruiting and training terror operatives for the al-Qaeda linked Jemaah Islamiyah group. Indonesian authorities are investigating whether the suspects were involved in hiding Noordin Top or his right-hand-man Azahari Husin, who blew himself up in a gunbattle with police two weeks ago after they discovered his refuge in Eastern Java. Azahari was believed to be Indonesia's top bomb-making expert.
During a raid on a recently-abandoned hideout in the Central Java province, police found a video in which a masked man, believed from his accent to be Noordin Top, warned Britain, Italy, Australia and America that they will be "the target of our next attack"
Both Noordin and Azahari have been accused of being directly involved in at least four terror attacks in Indonesia, including the Bali bombings in October 2002 which killed 202 people, two attacks in the capital, Jakarta, in 2003 and 2004, in which 22 people died, and more recently the bombings of restaurants in Bali on 1 October this year, which killed 23.