Explosive used in Bali blast contains RDX: Investigators

I Wayan Juniartha and Dadan Wijaksana, The Jakarta Post, Denpasar/Jakarta

Bali Police chief Brig. Gen. Budi confirmed on Wednesday that that based on the chemical traces found in and around last week's blast scene in Legian, Kuta tourist resort in Bali, investigators concluded that the explosive used contained RDX (Cyclotrimethylenetrinitramine), and its HBX and nitrate variants.

"We found RDX traces on the huge crater caused by the explosion in front of the Sari Club. We also found the residue of that chemical compound on the clothes and bodies of several witnesses," Budi said.

Thick RDX residue was also found on a wheel axle, supposedly of a minivan type of vehicle, retrieved from the second story of a building near the explosion site.

Earlier on Tuesday head of the National Intelligence Agency (BIN) A.M. Hendropriyono announced that the explosive used in the attack was the popularly-known C4 plastic demolition explosive.

C-4 is a mixture of RDX, other explosives, and plasticizers.

The C4 plastic explosive used in the Bali bombing is a very powerful substance mainly manufactured in the United States but widely supplied to military forces around the world, an expert said Tuesday.

Meanwhile the Indonesian Army denied reports that it had supplied the C4 used in the attacks to the terrorists.

C4 resembles white, uncooked pastry or bread dough, and can be kneaded and molded into any shape in total safety, said Mark Ribband, head of a British company that manufactures this explosive.

"You can even shoot bullets in it. It needs a detonator to make it explode," Ribband said as quoted by AFP.

"C4 is pretty well used only by the military although there are some small civilian uses for it," Ribband told AFP in a phone interview from Wiltshire, southern England.

"It's a standard issue, military plastic explosive based on an explosive ingredient called RDX, to which a polyisobutene plasticizer is added."

Ribband said C4 was manufactured "in several countries, but it's primarily U.S."

"If you see C4 in another country's military inventory, it tends to be because there has been American influence there, like C4 and M-16s means America, and AK-47s and Semtex mean Eastern Bloc."

The M-16 is the standard U.S. military assault rifle whose Soviet equivalent is the Kalashnikov, or AK-47. Semtex is a powerful plastic explosive that, in the Soviet era, was made in Czechoslovakia.

Ribband's company, Ribbands Explosives UK, sells explosives under a closely-controlled process that requires a government license.

"C4 is hard to buy," he said. "The best analogy is that it's considerably more controlled than heroin, but if you want to buy heroin, you can. Like all things, everything's available for a price.

"For legitimate sales, it's very hard to get hold of if you are not a government, or a user with the correct government certificate. Within the community of explosives users, it's around, it's something that's used but mainly it's a military explosive.

"If it's been misused, I would suspect that it's been stolen from a military force. That's the easiest way to get it, via a friendly soldier who can, let's say, do a demolition somewhere, write off the demolition as 100 kilos (220 pounds) but would only use 90 kilos (200 pounds). That's the easiest way to steal it."

"There'd be no question of an al-Qaeda operator turning up at a factory and saying, 'here's my money, I'd like to buy some.' That wouldn't happen."

The Australian Defense Association that the Indonesian Army supplied the C4 used in the Bali explosive.

"The accusations were bizarre, baseless, given that the investigation is still going on," Army spokesman Brig. Gen. Ratyono said as quoted by Antara as saying.

"You can check our (ammunition) storehouse to see for yourself if we have C4. The Army does not have C4 bombs," Ratyono added.

Executive director of the Australian Defense Association Michael O'Connor said in an interview with Australian media on Tuesday that there were certain people in the Army who supplied the C4 to the terrorist group that was responsible for the attack.

O'Connor accused the Laskar Jihad Muslim militant group as the group that had the possibly received C4 from the Army.

Laskar Jihad has been accused of links with Jamaah Islamiyah who is believed to have links with international terrorist group al-Qaeda.