[Kabar-indonesia] 2 updates: SMH in Jakarta: Arrests Expose Internet Fundraising for Terror

[JoyoNews at aol.com]

also: Reuters: Death row Bali bomber planned attack online: police

The Sydney Morning Herald
Thursday, August 24, 2006

Arrests Expose Internet Fundraising for Terrorism

Mark Forbes Herald Correspondent 
in Jakarta and Deborah Snow

INDONESIAN police claim to have arrested two "cyber-terrorists" who
were helping imprisoned Bali bomber Imam Samudra and using the
internet to raise funds for more terrorist attacks.

Samudra used a laptop provided by the pair last year to access
chatrooms and urge others to carry out terrorist attacks, police said.
They uncovered a large number of communications in the lead up to the
second Bali bombings last October.

Agung Prabowo and Agung Seyadi, who were arrested last week, also
allegedly helped establish a website last year giving detailed
instructions on how to assassinate foreigners in Jakarta and
nominating the best sites for terrorist attacks, including outside
Australia's embassy.

The news came as Indonesia's police chief, General Sutanto, scotched
claims of an annual " bombing season" against Western targets and
downplayed last week's warnings from the Department of Foreign Affairs
that Australians should re-think travelling to Indonesia because
terrorists were in the advanced stages of planning attacks.

Speaking through an interpreter in Sydney yesterday, General Sutanto
said: "It is the responsibility of the Australian Government to
protect its citizens anywhere in the world from even the smallest
terrorist threat ... [but] up to now, there are no signals or signs of
any further bomb attacks".

He also rejected the department's warning that "extremists may be
planning attacks from August to December 2006".

That period from now until the end of the year has been dubbed the
"bombing season" by some analysts because serious attacks against
western interests in Indonesia have occurred every year between August
and October since the first Bali bombing in October 2002.

Colonel Petrus Golose, of Indonesia's anti-terrorist task force, said
the arrests of the two so-called cyber-terrorists revealed new methods
by Jemaah Islamiah-linked terrorist cells to fund their activities
through information technology. "Now they recruit people who
understand technology - this is technology-based crime," he said.

Colonel Petrus said Seyadi was a lecturer in computer studies at a
university in Semarang, in central Java, and Prabowo a student.

Colonel Petrus claimed Prabowo was an active computer hacker who was
recruited at Samudra's request in order to raise funds via cyber
crime.

Although Colonel Petrus said they had no direct evidence linking
Samudra to the second Bali bombings, one of the suspects had sent
Samudra an email praising him for the attack, describing it as
"amazing".

Colonel Petrus confirmed that the laptop had been smuggled to Samudra
with the help of a prison official. He also said that police had
seized several computers, compact discs and documents during the two
arrests. The documents included press releases from Osama bin Laden
and the guarantee for Samudra's laptop.

The Indonesian Foreign Minister, Hassan Wirayuda, said the arrests
demonstrated that Indonesia had "these terrorist cells on the run".

Last week, terrorism expert Sidney Jones said she had come to accept
the validity of the so-called bombing season but yesterday General
Sutanto insisted there were no experts in Indonesia "who have this
expertise to produce bombs, which means that the threat for us is a
bit lighter".

-------------------------------

Death row Bali bomber planned attack online: police

JAKARTA, Aug. 23 (Reuters) - A man on death row for the 2002 Bali bombings 
communicated with Islamic militants on the Internet while in prison to organize 
another deadly attack on the Indonesian resort island last year, police said 
on Wednesday.

Imam Samudra used a laptop with a wireless connection smuggled to his prison 
cell in Bali to hook up to the Internet and chat with co-conspirators, said 
the 
national police head of the cyber crime unit, Petrus Golose.

"Imam Samudra ... directed the fund-raising for the second Bali bombing," 
Golose told reporters.

"The laptop allowed Imam Samudra to chat without restrictions in Ahlussunnah 
and CafeIslam chatrooms," he said referring to religious chatrooms. "This took 
place before the second Bali bombing."

He didn't say whether the militant used a cellphone to connect to the 
Internet.

Imam Samudra and two other militants, Amrozi and Ali Gufron, have been on 
death row for more than two years after courts convicted them of playing leading 
roles in the October 2002 nightclub bombings in Bali that killed 202 people, 
mostly tourists.

While they were in prison, suicide bombings ripped through three restaurants 
on the tourist island of Bali last October, killing 20 people.

Golose said the information was obtained after police arrested two men this 
month who ran a Web site to raise funds for attacks through online credit card 
fraud.

One of the men smuggled a laptop to Samudra with the help of a prison 
official at the request of Noordin Top, believed to be one of the masterminds of some 
of the deadliest attacks in Indonesia in recent years.

Samudra, Ali Ghufron and Amrozi have since been transferred to an island 
prison off the southern coast of Java island, where they await executions.

The attorney general's office said this week the executions of the three men 
had been delayed, citing a judicial review planned by defense lawyers.

The bombings in Bali have been blamed on the Southeast Asian Islamic militant 
group, Jemaah Islamiah, which authorities say has links with Osama bin 
Laden's 
al Qaeda network.

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Joyo Indonesia News Service
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