*Source: DTN News / Int'l Media
(NSI News Source Info) JAKARTA, Indonesia - July 23, 2009: THE terrorist network behind the Jakarta hotel bombings received help from al-Qaeda leaders in Pakistan.
Indonesian police spokesman Nanan Soekarna holds sketches of two Indonesian men they suspect were the suicide bombers in Jakarta, July 22, 2009. Indonesia on Wednesday released sketches of the faces of two Indonesian men they suspect were the suicide bombers in near-simultaneous attacks on two luxury hotels in Jakarta.
Two of the country's highest security officials have linked al-Qaeda to the blasts that killed at least nine people.
Noordin Mohammed Top, the Malaysian-born leader of a violent splinter group of Jemaah Islamiah that is believed to have carried out the attacks, has had close links to al-Qaeda since 2002 when the group funded the first Bali bombing. Noordin was a key organiser of four big bombings in Indonesia since 2002 in which more than 240 people have died.
In central Java, police have arrested one of Noordin's wives. Ms Arina, her two children and mother were taken to Jakarta for interrogation.
DNA tests reveal that the bomber at the JW Marriott Hotel was aged 16 or 17. Yesterday police released sketches of him and the bomber at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel.
The youth's DNA was found in room 1808 of the Marriott. Police are trying to establish whether the man who checked into the room two days before the blasts was Nur Hasbi, also known as Nur Said, a long-time foot soldier of Noordin who has been on Indonesia's most wanted list since 2006. He was believed to have been one of the suicide bombers. DNA tests show he was not.
Police have appealed for the public's help to identify the bombers. The media in Jakarta are speculating that Noordin's network arranged for one its operatives, identified as Ibrahim, to obtain a job in a florist's at the Ritz-Carlton three years ago.
A man who might be Ibrahim is shown on security footage taking a backpack to the shop several times in the days before the bombings. DNA tests have shown he was not one of the bombers.
The head of the counter-terrorism desk at the Co-ordinating Ministry of Political, Legal and Security Affairs, Ansyaad Mbai, told Kompas newspaper that information obtained by police pointed to al-Qaeda's involvement. "So far the cells which are believed to be [connected with] al-Qaeda in South-East Asia are the cells in Jemaah Islamiah," Inspector-General Mbai said.
A former head of Indonesia's Detachment 88 anti-terrorism squad, Surya Darma, also said he was convinced of al-Qaeda's involvement. "This kind of operation is not a domestic kind of work," Brigadier-General Darma said. "This is al-Qaeda."
General Darma said the terrorists who carried out the Mumbai attacks last year, which were planned in Pakistan, stayed in their target hotels, as did the Jakarta bombers.
General Darma did not believe the bombers would have assembled the bombs. "The bomb maker and the bomb executor usually do not meet each other. It is because they have their own separate jobs."
General Darma said that based on six years of interrogating terrorism suspects he was "100 per cent sure that no matter how small the role, there must have been help from inside the hotel".
A former member of JI, Nasir Abbas, has said the bombings would almost certainly be related to international issues. "The actions were related to the US's action towards Iraq, Afghanistan or Taliban," he said.
Meanwhile, police appear to have begun a crackdown on the firebrand Muslim cleric Abu Bakar Bashir, the spiritual leader of the Bali bombers and head of the Islamic school where some terrorists were educated. They stopped him delivering a sermon in East Java on Tuesday.
Bashir has claimed the Jakarta bombings were a warning from Allah and if Indonesia continued to refuse to become an Islamic state, they would continue.
