Channel NewsAsia, 03 October 2005 2013 hrs (SST)
Police go on top alert across Indonesia following Bali blasts
JAKARTA : Indonesia's police force has gone on top alert nationwide as part of efforts
to track down the culprits behind the weekend bomb blasts on the resort island of
Bali, a spokesman said.
"The chief of the national police (General Sutanto) said that there is a need to step up
security to top alert," national police spokesman Inspector General Arianto Anang
Budiarjo said Monday.
Budiarjo said the measure would apply nationwide. Previously only police in Jakarta
had declared top alert status, under which two-thirds of officers have to be on standby.
"This top alert is part of efforts to uncover this network, (to prevent) the escape of
suspects and their groups," he said, referring to those linked to the blasts which killed
19 tourists and Indonesians plus the three suicide attackers.
But Budiarjo could not immediately confirm a report in the Sinar Harapan evening
newspaper which said that police in western Bali had arrested a suspect who was
trying to cross to Java by ferry on Sunday.
Jembrana district Police Chief Setyo Dwiantoro was quoted by the Sinar Harapan as
saying that the man, suspected of involvement in the Bali blast, was arrested at the
ferry port in Gilimanuk on Sunday morning.
Dwiantoro said the man was now under investigation but declined to give further
details.
Bali police spokesman Reniban told AFP that "the arrest has nothing to do with the
bombing".
The Metro television station said police were checking the identity of everyone arriving
at the Ketapang port where state ferries from Bali dock. Police were also checking
every incoming vehicle, including motorcycles.
Bali police were Monday also questioning witnesses to the blasts and publicising
photographs of the severed heads of the suspected suicide bombers, and a video of
one of them in action, in a bid to identify the masterminds.
National police deputy spokesman Sunarko Danu Ardanto said that the heads, which
remained identifiable, indicated the bombers were aged in their early 20s.
"If we can determine the identity... then he has a group and relatives," he told
reporters in Bali, adding that investigators have questioned about 18 witnesses,
including 12 from the two blast sites at Jimbaran and six from Kuta.
He said police have also opened a 24-hour SMS text-message hotline line for public
to send in any information.
In Jakarta, Budiarjo told journalists that police have no leads on the three suspected
suicide bombers as yet.
"We do not know yet who these people are," he said of the three suspected suicide
bombers whose heads were found at the scene of the blasts.
He also declined to speculate on whether the three were linked to fugitive Malaysian
bombmaker Azahari Husin as many have alleged.
"Suicide bombings are often used by the Azahari group, but we cannot say they are
part of the Azahari group just because of that. We can only say that they are using
the same pattern," he said.
Sidney Jones of the International Crisis Group think-tank has said that Azahari and
his compatriot Moordin Mohammad Top appear to be splitting from the extremist
Jemaah Islamiyah terror network to form an even more hardline force.
The pair, two of Asia's most wanted men had been linked to JI, which is blamed for
the Bali bombings which killed 202 people three years ago, and other attacks on a
Jakarta hotel and the Australian embassy in the Indonesian capital. - AFP/ct
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