`Bali suspect says al-Qaeda funded attack'

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

One of the key suspects in the Bali bombings has confessed to police investigators that international terrorist network al- Qaeda might have funded the Kuta attack that killed over 190 people and injured 300 others.

U.S.-based news magazine Time reported in its latest edition this week that it had seen confidential police confessions by two key suspects, Ali Ghufron alias Mukhlas and Abdul Aziz alias Imam Samudra.

It said the confessions established a link between al-Qaeda and the Bali bombers, most of whom are alleged members of the Jamaah Islamiyah (JI) -- a regional terrorist network which aims to create a Pan-Southeast Asian Islamic state.

"Regional security and intelligence agencies have long suspected that al-Qaeda and JI are connected, but until now they had no verification from the JI operatives themselves," Time writes.

The magazine said that Mukhlas, a self-professed leader of JI, believed that al-Qaeda money had funded the Oct. 12 Bali bombing.

More than 190 people, mainly foreign tourists, died in the blast.

"Summing up their interrogation of Mukhlas, Indonesian police officers concluded: 'Jamaah Islamiyah's jihad operations were funded by al-Qaeda," Time said in a press statement.

So far, police here have denied they had found evidence that could link the Bali bombers with al-Qaeda. The group is believed to have launched the Sept. 11 terrorist strikes in America that prompted the U.S. global war on terrorism.

"There's a lot of political pressure to keep Bali contained, If they say that there is an al-Qaeda connection, it opens up a whole new can of worms," Zachary Abuza, a U.S. academic currently based in Jakarta, said to Time.

However the Australian Federal Police (AFP) have made the same denial. They said on Monday that the investigation had found no evidence linking the Bali bombing to al-Qaeda, or even the JI network.

So far the strongest evidence indicating a regional terrorist group behind the Bali bombing are the three Malaysian nationals among the dozens of Indonesian suspects the police have named.

In addition, Ali Imron, one of main suspects in the Bali bombing, who was arrested in East Kalimantan earlier this month, confessed to the police that a number of suspects in the Bali bombing met in Thailand in February 2002 to prepare the Bali attacks.

This confession indicates that the bombers are part of a regional network.

Ali Imron was questioned on Tuesday by the police as a witness in the case of his elder brother Amrozi.

But aside from the confessions and the JI documents found at the homes of several suspects, the police have come short of substantiating the suspects' claims that they were JI operatives.

Little is known about JI largely due to its clandestine nature.

The regional terrorist group reportedly also has bases in Malaysia and Singapore. Its alleged spiritual leader is Abubakar Ba'asyir who leads a Muslim boarding school in Central Java.

The elderly cleric is under police detention on charges of masterminding a series of church bombings during Christmas in 2000.

Although some of the Bali bombers confessed to being JI operatives, none have implicated Ba'asyir in the bombings.