[Straits Times] INDONESIAN police said they have unearthed a new cache of bomb-making chemicals as part of investigations into the July 17 suicide attacks on two luxury hotels in Jakarta. Police spokesman Sulistyo Ishak said on Thursday the chemicals were found in a rented warehouse in Bogor, West Java, and could be linked to the terror network of Malaysian extremist Noordin Top. 'The materials are being investigated by Detachment 88 counter-terrorism police to find out whether they're similar to those used by Noordin Top's network,' he said. 'We can't tell you now what they were going to use this for, such as where and which target.'
Police launched a massive raid on a suspected Noordin hideout last Friday but failed to locate the fugitive Malaysian, killing instead one of his alleged accomplices in the hotel attacks after a 17-hour siege.
The dead man was identified by police on Wednesday as Ibrohim, who worked at the JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotels as a florist and was said to have played a crucial role in the planning and execution of the suicide bombings. The blasts at the two hotels killed seven people, mainly foreigners, and have been blamed on the Noordin network.
Police also said they were investigating an e-mail purportedly written by Noordin which appeared on a little-known Indonesian news website on Thursday claiming the fugitive had escaped the security cordon around his suspected hideout last Friday. The missive gave no information that is not already in the public domain and repeated Al-Qaeda-style rationales for waging 'holy war' against Westerners.