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'Ready to die' squads revealed
12/08/2003 12:01 - (SA)
Jakarta - The Jemaah Islamiyah terror group blamed for the Bali nightclubs and Jakarta hotel blasts has formed a special unit numbering 10 to 15 potential suicide bombers, said a report on Tuesday.
Indonesia's respected Tempo news magazine said a man called Mustofa, arrested during police raids in early July, had confessed to preparing the "ready to die" squad known as Laskar Khos, or Special Militia.
Suicide bombers were used to kill 202 people in Bali last October.
Authorities believe the Marriott Hotel bombing, which killed 11 people last week and sparked a heightened alert in the city, was probably also a suicide blast.
The United States has warned that extremists could be plotting more attacks against Americans or United States interests in Indonesia after the hotel blast.
The Tempo report did not make clear whether 10 to 15 was the total number of potential sucide bombers or whether each cell contained that many.
Tempo based its account of Mustofa's confession on a police source. JI is believed linked to al-Qaeda.
Experts at bomb-making
The magazine said Ali Ghufron alias Mukhlas, who is accused of having overall responsibility for the Bali bombing, belonged to one cell.
Mustofa himself belonged to another cell "and there are still other cells yet to be caught," it said.
"They are armed and are experts at bomb-making," said Tempo's source, adding that each group was commanded by a veteran of the Afghanistan war against the former Soviet Union.
Asked about the report, Zainuri Lubis of the national police said: "For the moment, we don't have any news like that."
Mustofa was one of nine alleged JI members arrested during raids in the Jakarta area and in Semarang in Central Java. Police seized 25 sacks of potassium chlorate - enough to build several bombs of the size used in the Bali blasts - and several shoulder-launched rockets.
Named as targets
They also seized TNT, detonators, ammunition, rifles, binoculars, JI documents, a booklet of church service schedules and also CDs and cassettes on JI.
A senior member of President Megawati Sukarnoputri's Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle said he and three other senior party members were named as targets in the JI documents.
Police have said "about five" political leaders and high-profile individuals were named as targets along with several shopping centres.
But they say they have no information about a report in Monday's Los Angeles Times, that said the Jakarta headquarters of several United States oil firms were found on the target list.
Police confirmed that body parts found at the scene of the Marriott blast belong to a JI member identified as Asmar Latinsani, 28.
The country's chief detective, Erwin Mappaseng, said on Monday night he could not confirm whether Asmar had driven the van which blew up.
Maybe equipment is lacking
One of the nine men arrested with Mustofa grabbed an M-16 rifle, ran into a bathroom and shot himself dead, even though he was handcuffed, police said.
The latest bombing has sparked calls for a Singapore-style internal security act, but vice-president Hamzah Haz said Indonesia should not be in a hurry to introduce such a law.
"It should first be studied and analysed what is lacking (in the present legal tools)," Haz was quoted by the official Antara news agency as saying.
"If the police and the national intelligence agency are capable, but lack equipment, that's what should be improved."
- AFP
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