Police say terror suspects have no bomb
Tony Hotland, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Malaysian terrorist suspects Dr. Azahari and Noordin Moh. Top have no more high explosives in their possession, a high-ranking police officer said on Friday.
National Police chief of detectives Comr. Gen. Erwin Mappaseng, however, warned against complacency, saying the two could easily obtain low explosives.
"We seized their last high-explosive materials when we attempted to arrest them in Bandung last year, although they escaped," said Mappaseng, adding that this assessment was based on the questioning of Hotel Marriott bombing suspect Amran bin Mansur, alias Andy Saputra.
Amran, along with his alleged partner Jafar, is the latest suspect in a series of bombings to be arrested over the last several weeks in Central Java.
Amran also told police investigators that Riduan Isamuddin, alias Hambali, believed to be the top man in Southeast Asia's Jamaah Islamiyah terror network, was the coordinator of a string of bomb attacks across the nation.
"Based on information from Amran, Hambali was the coordinator of terrorist attacks here, assisted by accomplices such as Imam Samudra and Idris," Mappaseng said.
Hambali is in the custody of the United States after being arrested in Thailand in August 2003. He has been accused of plotting the Bali bombings of Oct. 12, 2002, which killed at least 202 people and injured over 300 others.
According to Erwin, high explosives used in terrorist attacks here were illegally brought into the country before 2000 from the Philippines, where Amran studied bomb-making.
"Amran and Jafar divided the materials into four packages, one of which was used for the bombings in Pekanbaru and Batam on Christmas Eve in 2000. So far, Amran's direct involvement has been determined to have been in the attack in Pekanbaru on Dec. 24, 2000, as the supplier. Pretty much the same with Amrozi in the Bali bombings," said Mappaseng.
He added that leftover explosives from these attacks were used in the Marriott Hotel bombing in Jakarta on Aug. 5 last year.
"But Amran said he was not in Jakarta when that attack happened," said Mappaseng.
He also said that Amran provided six guns, which were obtained in Malaysia, to Imam Samudra in Batam and Pekanbaru in 2000, before he and Jafar went into hiding.
Imam Samudra, alias Abdul Aziz, was convinced in the Bali bombings last year and sentenced to death. He is appealing the verdict to the Supreme Court.
While in hiding, according to Mappaseng, Jafar worked as a blacksmith and exported his products to Johor, Malaysia, with the money being used to help finance their terrorist operations.
Mappaseng warned that Dr. Azahari's alleged network was always planning new attacks.
"However, we do not know their exact plans such as dates or and places, but we are working on it. There are lists of possible targets that we seized from Jafar, but we are suspicious of the lists. We think they were meant to throw us off the track of the real potential targets," he said.
National Police chief Gen. Da'i Bachtiar said the arrests of Amran and Jafar should limit the movement of Dr. Azahari and Noordin.
"We are still focusing on them because we do not want them to use the (upcoming election) campaign period to attack crowds of party supporters," he said.
The campaign for the legislative election is scheduled to begin on March 11 and last until April 1.