LAKSAMANA.Net, January 29, 2003 01:14 PM
Police Link Baasyir to Bali Blasts
January 29, 2003 01:14 PM
Laksamana.Net - Police have for the first time directly linked Southeast Asian terrorist
network Jemaah Islamiyah and its leader, radical cleric Abu Bakar Baasyir, to last
October's Bali bombings that killed almost 200 people.
National Police chief General Dai Bachtiar on Tuesday (28/1/03) told parliament that
chiefs of the militant Islamic organization decided at a meeting in Bangkok in
February 2002 to attack the interests of the US and its allies in Indonesia and
Singapore.
That meeting was apparently the genesis of the plan to target nightclubs on Bali. The
October 12 bombings destroyed two popular nightspots and killed at least 193 people,
most of them foreign tourists.
Police have arrested about 20 Indonesian men, including several Jemaah Islamiyah
members, in connection with the bombings. Some of the self-confessed suspects
have claimed the sole aim of the attack was to kill as many Americans as possible -
yet most of those killed were Australians. Only six Americans perished in the attack.
Thailand has strongly denied reports that extremist Muslim groups used it as a base
to plot the Bali bombings, but Bachtiar insisted that Jemaah Islamiyah made its plans
in Bangkok.
"Jemaah Islamiyah was present in the Bali bombings. We know this firstly from the JI
operational plan, which was decided in Bangkok in the middle of February 2002, with
the objective of attacking the interests of the United States and its allies in Indonesia
and Singapore," Bachtiar was quoted as saying by Reuters.
He said Baasyir had given his blessing to the operations, but stopped short of saying
whether he was involved in planning the Bali blasts.
But a senior police spokesman on Wednesday said it was only a matter of time
before Baasyir was charged with involvement in the bombings.
"Things will definitely head in that direction," police spokesman Zainuri Lubis was
quoted as saying by Agence France Presse.
Baasyir is already facing trial in Jakarta for treason in connection with a plot to
assassinate President Megawati Sukarnoputri. He is also charged with involvement in
a series of church bombings that killed 18 people on Christmas Eve 2000.
Lubis said police have not yet had time to question the cleric about the Bali blasts
because of their investigations into the assassination plot and church bombings.
Although a sworn admirer of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, Baasyir denies any
wrongdoing and claims Jemaah Islamiyah doesn't exist.
Erwin Mappaseng, head of the police's criminal investigation bureau, told Reuters that
Baasyir had given the Jemaah Islamiyah plotters his approval for the Bali attack.
"This group can only work after they get a blessing from the emir, which in this case
is Abu Bakar Baasyir," he said.
"This was not just for Bali. It started in 2000 that each bombing needed the blessing
and approval from the emir, including the most recent, which was Bali," he added.
Finance
Bachtiar said Jemaah Islamiyah leaders Mukhlas and Imam Samudra, who are both
under arrest, carried out the plan for the Bali bombings.
He also said $35,000 used to finance the attack came from Jemaah Islamiyah's
former operational chief Hambali, who is still at-large and suspected of being al
Qaeda's main Asian operative.
Hambali reportedly gave the money to a Malaysian man, Wan Min Wan Mat, who
then passed the funds on to Mukhlas. Police had earlier described Wan Min, a former
lecturer at Malaysia Technology University, as Jemaah Islamiyah's treasurer.
Wan Min was arrested in Malaysia on September 27, 2002, under the Malaysian
Internal Security Act, accused of being a local leader of the Malaysian Militant Group
(Kumpulan Militan Malaysia, KMM), which has been linked to Jemaah Islamiyah.
Jemaah Islamiyah, which aims to create a regional Islamic state through the use of
force, was declared a terrorist organization by the United Nations last year after the
Bali bombings.
According to a report in Time magazine, Mukhlas has said there was a "strong
possibility" that Hambali received the money for the Bali attacks from Osama bin
Laden.
Indonesian police are yet to officially link bin Laden or al Qaeda to the bombings.
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