Police yet to focus their inquiries on bomb source

Police yet to focus their inquiries on bomb source

Rendi A. Witular and Muhammad Nafik, The Jakarta Post, Kuta/Jakarta

Almost six weeks after the deadly Bali terrorist attacks, police
investigators are yet to focus their investigation on the source
of high explosives used to make the bombs.

"We have not yet focused our investigation on the source of
the explosives. It is still too early to move toward that," head
of the multinational inquiry team Insp. Gen. I Made Mangku
Pastika told The Jakarta Post in Denpasar, Bali.

He argued that with the arrest of at least six more suspects,
including Imam Samudra, who are believed to be the masterminds of
the Oct. 12 blast, would further pave the way to finding the
sources of the horrifying bomb.

However, analysts have said identifying the source of the high
explosives would significantly help the joint inquiry team find
the bombers, who may have been involved.

A probe into the sources of the explosives could open other
options of other parties -- not only those linked to al-Qaeda or
JI -- possibly playing a role in the bombings, they said.

Pastika had not yet begun to investigate the possibility of
any security personnel or national explosive producers and
distributors being involved in supplying the explosives.

Police had earlier found at the blast site traces of TNT and
RDX, a chemical in C-4, which are not available with general
public but usually found in military arsenals and companies
obtaining licenses to import and distribute such explosives.

These bomb-making materials were not among those that Amrozi,
the only suspect in custody so far, confessed to buying from the
Tidar Kimia chemical shop in Surabaya, East Java.

What Amrozi purchased from the shop were common chemicals such
as calcium chlorate, sulfur and aluminum powder, according to the
police.

The inquiry team has said that RDX, was only used as a booster
to detonate the high-powered bomb believed to be planted in
Amrozi's Mitsubishi van.

Hari Fajar Sampurna, an explosive expert from P.T. Dahana --
one of the nine companies licensed to import and distribute
explosives to any interested parties -- said he could understand
if RDX was used only as a booster to detonate the ammonium
nitrate-made bomb.

"If RDX was the main ingredient of the bomb, the devastation
caused would have been much worse than that in Bali," he told the
Post on Monday.

But he doubted the Bali bombers were capable of assembling a
RDX-made booster without sophisticated equipment.

"A booster must be made with very solid material, like a
grenade, which cannot be made at home or other common places. It
must be made at a factory. Especially if it contains RDX," he
said.

C-4 was first manufactured in the United States and its
trading partners and other allies around the globe have access to
it.

The Indonesian Military (TNI) has denied in local media
reports ever having stored RDX or C4. However, PT Dahana
operations director Tanto Dirgantoro said on Monday his company
had imported RDX for limited parties including the military.

Bomb experts have said that given a lack of control by the
government, it was easy for buyers to obtain explosives in the
country.

Up until 2001, all imported explosives could be brought into
the country without clearing customs since explosives were
considered, at that time, a strategic good that was duty free,
they added.