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| Southeast Asia |
| Azahari planned to hit Bali mourners, kill Downer |
| 2005-11-25 |
| Foreign Minister Alexander Downer and Justice Minister Chris Ellison were among more than 50 Australians who narrowly avoided becoming the targets of another terrorist attack in Indonesia when they attended a memorial service in Bali last month. Indonesian police have obtained documents which reveal that bomb-maker and Jemaah Islamiah (JI) mastermind Azahari Bin Husin had planned to attack the service. The service was held on October 12 in honour of the 202 people who died in the first Bali bombings three years ago. Azahari's attack plans were foiled by the high level security at the event and only came to light after his death in a police shootout earlier this month. According to the documents, Azahari started planning his attack weeks ahead of time. Dr Rohan Gunaratna, the head of terrorism research at the Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies in Singapore, is familiar with the document. "Bin Husin planned extensively to mount an attack in Bali during the commemoration or during the ceremony that marked the first Bali bombing," Dr Gunaratna said. "These attack plans were recovered in his residence or in his safe house in Malang immediately after the police stormed his safe house and killed him and his associate." Dr Gunaratna says Azahari and his team failed to carry out the attack because they were under pressure. "I believe because Dr Azahari Husin and his team were under pressure, it was not possible to develop the attack plan more comprehensively." Dr Gunaratna says the documents contain the names, ages and nationalities of the victims of the Jimbaran Bay and Kuta Square attacks. "Dr Azahari not only prepared very detailed plans to attack Bali for a second time in October of this year, but after the attack he made very careful notes of the numbers of people who were killed - foreigners and Indonesians," he said. Dr Gunaratna says Azahari looked at a number of targets in Bali, because it is a predominantly non-Muslim area, and the Ubud Art Market, east of Denpasar. "In fact, the terrorists mounted surveillance on the market and it was also one of the targets and you can see [in the documents] that there were a total of four to five targets in Bali that he considered," he said. Dr Gunaratna says the documents show Azahari was very detailed in his preparations. "Before the attack, during the attack and after the attack he was a textbook, a bomb-maker, a teacher, he was a planner, he was a strategist, he was everything in the bomb-making world," he said. "He studied under ... a key Al Qaeda bomb-maker in Afghanistan ... looking at the bomb-making manuals he produced, looking at the attack plans he produced, I would say that he perfected the art." |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |