Letter discusses future JI attack

Letter discusses future JI attack

SINGAPORE: Planning is well under way for a terrorist attack in Indonesia this year that could be as devastating as the 2002 Bali bombings, The Straits Times reported on Friday.

A letter obtained by the newspaper from a Sumatra-based operative of the Jamaah Islamiyah (JI) terror group tells of militants being trained for suicide bombings in Jakarta.

It was written to the network's top bomb-maker, identified as Malaysian Azahari Husin, who has been on the run after plotting three of Indonesia's worst terrorist strikes.

The al-Qaeda-linked JI has been blamed for a host of attacks and plots throughout Southeast Asia, including the Bali nightclub attacks that killed 202 people, a blast at Jakarta's JW Marriott hotel the following year that killed 12, and a suicide car bombing outside the Australian Embassy in the Indonesian capital last September that left 10 dead.

A leading Indonesian security official and terrorism expert believes the note, dated Nov. 26, 2004, and written in pidgin Arabic, is authentic.

"It is a credible document and corroborates some of our findings in the field that there will be another bombing," Ansyaad Mbai, a senior Indonesian counterterrorism official, was quoted as saying in Jakarta. --DPA