The Age, October 7, 2005
Police home in on bombers
By Mark Forbes and Catharine Munro
POLICE are close to confirming the identity of at least one of Bali's suicide bombers
and believe a third senior Jemaah Islamiah commander was involved in the attacks.
JI military commander Zulkarnean may have directed senior bomb makers Noordin
Top and Azahari Husin to carry out the bombings, intelligence sources confirmed.
Police have intensified their hunt for Zulkarnean in East Java on the basis of telephone
interceptions.
Blood samples are believed to have been taken from families in East Java related to
the suspected suicide bombers and homes in the region have been raided.
In Central Java, Solo police chief Abdul Madjid has revealed that a "trusted source",
who regularly provided intelligence on the town's militant Islamic community, identified
one of the bombers from pictures of severed heads released by police.
Senior Commissioner Madjid told The Age: "My informant, my trusted man for years,
told me that he recognised one of the three. According to him he is known by the
name Gareng.
"According to my informant, Gareng was in Solo in the middle of 2004. So we keep
looking for anything related to him, like where he lives."
Senior Commissioner Madjid said Gareng could be an alias, but the man frequented
the Kertopuran area of Solo.
"Kertopuran is considered a 'red' area because various so-called radical groups reside
in Kertopuran, such as the Islamic War Army, which is an anti-Government
organisation," he said. Solo, a Jemaah Islamiah stronghold, is home to jailed cleric
and alleged JI spiritual leader Abu Bakar Bashir's Islamic school. Most of the original
Bali bombers studied there.
Police do not know if Gareng attended Bashir's Ngruki pesantren (boarding school).
Several suspects from Solo were being sought for further questioning.
The director of the Ngruki school, Wahyudin, said he did not know anyone called
Gareng.
"Don't try to find him here," he quipped. "Try the zoo."
In the search for suspects, Senior Commissioner Madjid said he had sent police to
the border between Central and East Java. Asked if they were searching for
Zulkarnean, he said: "Yes, of course."
Police are also hunting five suspects linked to the original Bali bombers from the
West Java town of Banten. Three had been jailed for storing explosives.
Anti-terrorist squads have also launched an operation around the East Java town of
Surabaya, searching for a man who may have replaced Rois, the convicted organiser
of the bombing of Australia's Jakarta embassy, as the right-hand man of fugitive terror
commander Azahari.
The man, whom police named only as AR, but is believed to go by the name Ali, may
have recruited the suicide bombers.
"We don't know where he's hiding, but we are now even more convinced that AR was
involved in Bali bomb two," a police source said.
¦Restaurants on a Bali beach hit by terrorists were warned they could be targeted following
the discovery of a partially made bomb weeks ago, but decided to delay plans to
bolster security, an official said yesterday.
Cafes along Jimbaran Bay were told to station guards and to check bags and cars
entering the area, but decided to wait until after a Hindu holiday that was celebrated
yesterday — four days after the bombings, said Captain D Dharmada.
Copyright © 2004. The Age Company Ltd.
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