[Kabar-indonesia] NYT/Jakarta: A Terror Strike, Choreographed On a Computer

[Joyo at aol.com]

also: Indonesia prepares for execution of Bali bombers

The New York Times 
Monday, July 3, 2006

A Terror Strike, Choreographed On a Computer

By RAYMOND BONNER

JAKARTA, Indonesia, July 2 — The bombs should be small
and placed in day packs, making them harder to detect.
The bombers should dress like tourists. They should
not bother targeting hotels because security is too
tight. Instead they should consider restaurants,
discos and theaters.

A thorough survey should be done in advance by the
bombers themselves. That way, they are more familiar
with the sites, and no one is left behind to be hunted
later by the police.

"There is no escape plan because the perpetrators will
become martyrs," the planning document states. "They
will go to the targets and not return."

That is part of the playbook for a suicide bombing,
including even a minute-by-minute choreography of the
bombers' final hours. The Indonesian police uncovered
the document from the computer of one of the planners
of an attack last October in Bali, which killed 20
people when three men walked into separate restaurants
and blew themselves up.

The document offers a rare glimpse into the minds of
the most cunning terrorist plotters and of the kind of
meticulous planning that lies behind their operations.
It also shows what even a small, local group with few
resources can do, and the difficulty of thwarting
their plans.

"It tells us that these guys tried to think of every
contingency," said Sidney Jones, project director of
the International Crisis Group's office in Jakarta,
and one of the foremost authorities on terrorism in
Southeast Asia. "Even when they're being hunted, they
had the capacity to think through what had to be done
right down to the second."

The 34-page document, titled "The Bali Project," was
found on the computer of Azhari Husin, a
Malaysian-born engineer educated in Australia and
Britain who became a master bomb maker and was one of
the most dangerous terrorists in Southeast Asia until
he was killed in a shootout with the police last
November.

The document was given to The New York Times by a
person who requested anonymity because it had not been
officially released. It was first reported on by
Tempo, an English-language weekly newsmagazine here.

Mr. Azhari's co-planner was Mohammad Noordin Top, who
has narrowly escaped capture several times and remains
on the run, one of the most wanted men in Southeast
Asia.

The Indonesian police have said they found no evidence
of any link to Al Qaeda in the Bali bombings. Members
of Jemaah Islamiyah, the fundamentalist Islamic
movement here, were involved, but the operation was
not directed from the top of that organization, the
police have said.

The document, written in six sections, sheds little
new light on those links but corrects some initial
speculation about the attack — that the bombs were
assembled in the Philippines, for instance, and that
the attack was aimed at the Indonesian government, or
the Balinese economy.

The author, who the police say they believe was Mr.
Azhari himself, begins by asking, "Why Bali?" Because
it will have a "global impact," he answers. "Bali is
known around the world, better than Indonesia itself,"
the author writes. "An attack in Bali will be covered
by the international media."

In Section 2, "Method of Attack," he notes that the
plan must differ from the first attack in Bali, in
October 2002, when a minivan loaded with explosives
was detonated in front of two nightclubs, killing 202
people.

Now, "security is tighter," the author writes, noting
that the police chief in Bali had increased the number
of intelligence officers to 256 from 70.

The author concludes that it is too risky to bring in
a truck or a similarly large amount of explosives and
that it would be more difficult to rent a house with a
garage to assemble a bomb. "The bomb must be smaller,
and brought in ready to use," the document says.

The targets, the author writes, are "foreign tourists
from America and its allies," which included all NATO
countries, as well as Australia, New Zealand, South
Korea, Japan, Thailand and the Philippines.

The author knew that the bombers would have trouble
determining the native country of many tourists. "So,
we will consider all white people the enemy," the
document says.

A few weeks before the attacks, the three men who
would carry out the operation were sent to Bali to do
a "survey" of possible targets for themselves.

Beforehand, they were told to learn what they could
about Bali, a popular tourist island, on the Internet,
and to get tourist brochures from travel agents and a
tourist map.

The possible targets surveyed included McDonald's,
Pizza Hut, Burger King and KFC restaurants, theaters,
a golf course, tattoo parlors, art galleries and
souvenir stalls.

As part of their surveillance, the men were told to
"pay attention to clothes worn by local tourists" and
what kind of day packs or shoulder bags they carried
and whether they carried more than one.

The men did their reconnaissance, then reported back.

The next section includes a question-and-answer
exchange between the men and their "field commander,"
presumably Mr. Azhari.

The men had concluded that the bombers should not use
taxis to reach their targets because a taxi driver
might help with the backpacks and be suspicious of
their weight.

Rather, they should take a motorcycle taxi, which
offers no opportunity for the driver to talk to the
passenger. As for how to dress, they decided on black
shirts, below the knee shorts or jeans and exercise
shoes or sandals.

They decided that discos and nightclubs offered
potential targets because most of the patrons were
foreigners, and there was "no security to speak of,
easy to enter."

But those sites were ultimately rejected, because
backpacks would be suspicious at the time of night
when the clubs got crowded, after 9 p.m.

That led the men to consider restaurants in Kuta, one
of the most popular tourist districts, as well as the
seafood restaurants on the beach at Jimbaran. "Of all
the places," the document says, "this may be the
easiest, God willing."

The team explained how the tables at Jimbaran were
arranged in the sand, about a yard apart with three to
seven diners at each. "Almost 80 percent of the
patrons are white," they said. Others were Chinese or
Japanese, they noted, using a derogatory term.

The best time would be around 7:30 p.m., when the
restaurants were the most crowded and a backpack would
not be suspicious.

The survey team came up with four options. Mr. Azhari
and Mr. Noordin, it is presumed, chose the fourth: one
restaurant at Kuta Square and two restaurants at
Jimbaran.

Simultaneous attacks in two locations "will have
greater effect than simultaneous attacks in one
location," the document states.

There was a further reason for choosing the
restaurants at Jimbaran: many of the patrons were
businessmen. "The death of foreign businessmen will
have a greater impact than of young people," the
document says.

The backpack bombs were to be assembled by Mr. Azhari
at his base in Java, and there was a serious concern
about whether they could be taken on a bus to Bali
without being detected. At the Bali port of Gilimanuk,
where the vehicle ferry lands, passengers are required
to get off and their identification cards are checked.

The backpacks with the bombs could be left on the bus
— the police did not inspect baggage left on the bus,
the team reported.

The team determined that the backpacks should not be
mountaineering backpacks, but student day packs, to
avoid suspicion. For that reason, Mr. Azhari
constructed relatively light bombs weighing 10 to 12
kilograms, or 22 to 26 pounds.

He devised two elaborate detonating systems, which
Section 4 of the report explains in detail, including
schematic diagrams of the wiring system and drawings
of a man with the wired backpack.

The first was "direct" and connected to the explosives
in the backpack. The other was on "delay," for
explosives in a fanny pack worn by the bombers.

The delay time was 30 seconds; the bomber would flip
the switches for that one as he approached the
restaurant. That way, if he were stopped by a guard
and could not set off the main bomb, the fanny pack
would still explode.

Mr. Azhari worried that the bombs might explode during
the bus ride from the base to Bali, if the bus hit a
bump or the backpack was jostled, or on the motorcycle
from the boardinghouse to the targets. For that
reason, he decided to use four switches as a
precaution.

"It's important to make the bomb systems as simple as
possible so the perpetrators don't get confused," the
author wrote.

There was a green light, placed on the chest side of
the left backpack strap so that it was visible only to
the bomber, which would go on when the delay system
had been an activated. A red light, similarly hidden
on the right strap, would indicate that the main bomb
was ready, and the bomber only had to flip the last
switches. The order in which the switches were flipped
did not matter.

In Section 5, "The Attack," the final movements of the
suicide bombers are planned, in some cases to the
second.

5:25 p.m. — Pack, check out of the boardinghouse and
synchronize watches.

5:30 — Look for a motorcycle taxi to Legian Beach, in
Kuta.

6:15 — Arrive near the Hard Rock Cafe and look for a
place to pray.

6:35 — End evening prayers. Then the two groups split
up.

7:21 — The man who is going to detonate his explosives
in Kuta begins moving toward the restaurant, making
sure the red and green lights are on.

7:33:04 — Arrive at the restaurant.

7:33:25 — Make sure the delay switches are all ready,
and enter restaurant.

Meanwhile, the other two suicide bombers reach
Jimbaran Beach at 6:50, loiter at a food stall until
7:30, then synchronize their watches again, and begin
walking to the outdoor tables on the beach, one 45
yards behind the other. The first man walked into the
table area, and the second did the same. Then, the
document concludes its choreography.

7:34 — "ALLAH-U AKBAR!!!"

"We tried to minimize the impact on Muslims," the
author explains in the final section, which was
written after the attack. "Nevertheless, there were
still Muslim victims killed and wounded."

The death toll was a relatively low number compared
with the first Bali attack. Five of the 20 killed were
foreigners: 4 Australians and a Japanese. Fifteen were
Indonesians.

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Reuters
July 2. 2006

Indonesia prepares for execution of Bali bombers

Indonesia is preparing for the execution of three
militants sentenced to death for the 2002 Bali
bombings, but the exact date cannot be disclosed, the
attorney-general's office said on Wednesday. The three
men - Iman Samudra, 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, most of them tourists.

"We are preparing for the execution, but the place and
timeframe are secret according to the law," said Wayan
Pasek Suartha, the attorney-general's spokesman.

"We have got the permit, we asked to change the place
of execution from Bali to Nusakambangan, because they
have been detained there." Execution is normally
carried out by a firing squad, but the exact location
and time are kept secret. Normally, under Indonesian
law, death row convicts are executed in the place
where they have been tried.

But the attorney-general's office sought permission to
shift the execution from the resort of Bali to the
prison island of Nusakambangan in central Java where
the militants were shipped last year after anger grew
in the wake of suicide blasts on Oct. 1 that killed 20
people.

"The attorney-general sent a letter to me seeking
permission to change the place of execution," Hamid
Awaluddin, justice and human rights minister, told
reporters in Bali.

"I have replied that it can be done because the
execution is the attorney-general's prerogative. It
depends on the attorney-general, when they are going
to be executed." Some political analysts have said in
the past their execution could make them martyrs in
the eyes of Indonesia's militant fringe.

Last year, hundreds of protesters stormed a jail where
many of those convicted over the 2002 attacks are
serving time.

Amrozi, dubbed the "smiling bomber" for his chilling
grin and expressions of delight at the Bali carnage,
had said during his trial he welcomed the death
penalty.

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

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Joyo Indonesia News Service
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