Hunt for Bali suspects widens

2005-10-06 18:18

Bali - Indonesia widened its search for suspects in last weekend's suicide attacks on Bali island, calling on Thursday for local authorities across the sprawling nation to monitor and report suspicious activity.

Police were hunting for the militants who ordered the highly co-ordinated and near-simultaneous attacks on three restaurants crowded with foreign tourists, as well as those who made the explosives.

The three bombers killed 19 people and wounded 100. The al-Qaeda linked Jemaah Islamiyah terror group - blamed for nightclub bombings on Bali in 2002 that killed 202 people, mostly foreigners - was suspected of being behind the blasts.

Suspicious activities probed

Police circulated nationwide photographs of the three bombers' bruised severed heads, recovered from sites of the attacks on the island, which is visited by about 400 000 tourists each month.

Major-general Ariyanto Budiharjo said: "All regional police chiefs are investigating suspicious activities in their areas.

"The suicide bombers did not work alone. Someone must have ordered them. Someone must have made the explosives."

Bali police chief Made Mangku Pastika said investigators across the country were interrogating jailed terror convicts, checking if they recognised the bombers.

Officers have revealed little about the continuing probe, fearing that information released to media could help people linked to the attacks stay one step ahead of them.

Indonesia had been hit by four deadly terror attacks on Western targets in as many years.

Authorities have also questioned Balinese residents who were not native to the island.

- AP