Few clues to perpetrators one month after bombings

Few clues to perpetrators one month after bombings

Slobodan Lekic, Associated Press, Jakarta

Police concede they have made little progress in their
investigation into the Bali bombings one month ago, but terrorism
experts say it is only a matter of time before there is a
breakthrough.

Bali Police chief Insp. Gen. Made Mangku Pastika said on
Monday that identifying the three men who carried out the Oct. 1
suicide strikes that killed 23 people, including the bombers, and
wounded more than 100 others remained a top priority for his
detectives.

But while pictures of the bombers' severed heads have been
circulated nationwide, followed by a US$10,000 reward for
information about their identities, "so far nobody has come
forward," he said.

This has stymied investigators, leading to speculation that
the three may have been foreigners, possibly from Malaysia or
Muslim areas of the southern Philippines.

Police say identifying the men who bombed the three crowded
restaurants could lead them to the masterminds, suspected by some
to be Azahari bin Husin and Noordin Moh. Top, alleged to be key
figures in the regional terror group Jamaah Islamiyah (JI).

Though there has been little progress in the probe so far,
terrorism analysts note that investigators were not much quicker
in identifying the perpetrators of four earlier bombings
attributed to JI, a shadowy network of extremist groups with
cells in Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and the southern
Philippines.

In 2000, bombs exploded at 11 churches across Indonesia on
Christmas Eve, killing 19 people. Two years later, 202 people
perished in two coordinated blasts in Bali's Kuta district, and
in 2003 a car bomb killed 12 people at Jakarta's JW Marriott
Hotel. Last year, a minivan blew up in front of the Australian
Embassy in downtown Jakarta, killing 11.

Police have arrested hundreds of suspects in those cases and
several dozen others have been tried and convicted, including
five who received death sentences.

The wave of arrests, made with the help of investigators from
Australia and the United States, has greatly reduced JI's
organizational capabilities, said Ken Conboy, a Jakarta security
consultant and author of "The Second Front," a newly published
book on the terror group.

"The government's crackdown against JI effectively removed the
top two tiers of that organization," he said, adding that the
latest Bali attacks -- in which suicide bombers strolled into
cafes carrying small bombs in their backpacks -- were relatively
unsophisticated compared to the massive car bombs used in
previous attacks.

In some ways the group is more elusive now, because the
remaining cells are virtually autonomous, operating with little
or no contact with each other or their leadership, he said.

"Unfortunately, until the security forces succeed in capturing
JI's remaining leaders, the organization remains dangerous,"
Conboy said.

Sidney Jones, another expert on Islamic terrorist groups,
agreed.

"The investigation may be stalled for the moment, but I don't
think it'll be stalled forever," she said. "The walk-in bombers
have shown themselves to be a much more difficult investigation
than one involving a car bomb," which can be traced by chassis or
engine numbers, she added.

Experts say another problem hampering the investigation may be
the relatively low level of concern by the political
establishment regarding militant Islam, which is not seen as
threatening Indonesia's social order or territorial integrity.

While the threat of terrorist attacks remains a key issue for
many Western countries, authorities here have been distracted by
much bloodier and potentially more dangerous conflicts that have
shaken Indonesia since the fall of Soeharto in 1998.