No subject

December 02, 2002 (AFP)

INDONESIAN Muslim cleric Abu Bakar Bashir, who is being detained as a terrorism 
suspect, considers a Taliban-style government as closest to the Islamic ideal, 
a report said.

But Bashir is unlikely to have been directly involved in terrorism, according 
to Ahmad Syafi'i Ma'arif, who heads the Muhammadiyah, Indonesia's second 
largest Islamic movement.

Ma'arif recounted to Tempo weekly magazine a conversation he had with Bashir in 
the past.

"When I asked him what sort of government was closest to the ideal of Islam, 
Bashir was silent for a moment and then replied: 'Taliban'." 

A US-led coalition last year toppled Afghanistan's fundamentalist Taliban 
rulers for sheltering Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda terror network. 

Bashir has openly praised bin Laden as a hero defending the Islamic faith. He 
also chairs the Indonesian Mujahideen Council which wants Indonesia to adopt 
Islamic sharia law.

But he denies any links to terrorism and claims by Malaysia and Singapore that 
he is spiritual leader of the Jemaah Islamiah, a regional terror network which 
is suspected of a role in the October 12 Bali bombing.

Bashir has been detained since October 20 as a suspect in a series of church 
bombings on Christmas Eve 2000 and in a plot to assassinate Megawati 
Sukarnoputri before she became president.

Ma'arif said Bashir is a militant Muslim "but in the rhetorical sense."

He said he is sceptical that Bashir is guilty of what he is accused of.

"I do not think that it goes that far... Bashir once told me: 'It is impossible 
that I did those things.

They go against my own preachings'," Ma'arif said.

Bashir, 64, was arrested after Omar al-Faruq, an alleged al-Qaeda operative who 
is detained by US authorities, implicated him in terrorist operations in 
Indonesia.

Officials say evidence against Bashir also includes statements from terror 
suspects arrested in Malaysia and Singapore as well as police reports on the 
bombings of three churches on Batam island on Christmas Eve 2000.

Bashir demands to be confronted with al-Faruq before he answers police 
questions. 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Age (Melbourne)
Terror group fought in Afghanistan
December 3 2002
By Matthew Moore, Indonesia Correspondent
Jakarta

Key organisers of the Bali bombing were members of an exclusive group called 
G272 made up of Indonesian men who fought in Afghanistan, according to 
Indonesia's National Intelligence Agency (BIN).

BIN believes members of the group - who chose the name because all 272 members 
were bound by their common experience of fighting in Afghanistan - now live in 
Malaysia, Thailand, the southern Philippines and throughout Indonesia.

While BIN believes they have no specific plan for new terrorist attacks, agency 
spokesman Muchyar Yara said they maintained regular contact and awaited orders 
from overseas before undertaking any mission.

Mr Yara told The Age his organisation only knew the names of "seven to nine" 
members of the group, including key figures in the Bali bombing, Imam Samudra, 
alias Abdul Azis, Amrozi and his older brother Mukhlas, also know as Ali Gufron.

He said that while the group was large, it was very difficult to penetrate as 
members dealt mainly with other members of their separate cells and did not 
inform each other before or after any operation.

Because Indonesian men found the cold in Afghanistan so difficult, they were 
rarely involved in fighting on the front line, Mr Yara said.

Instead, many received training in explosives at camps across Afghanistan and 
BIN believes many are now expert bomb makers.

He said BIN believed Amrozi's brother, Mukhlas, had ordered the Bali attack by 
asking the confessed organiser of the bombing, Samudra, to establish a cell to 
carry out the operation.

A leader from overseas had been sent to oversee the group carrying out the 
attack, Mr Yara said.

"We believe since the beginning that this project was planned, prepared and 
controlled from abroad," he said.

He would not say who this leader was or if BIN believed he was one of the 
Yemeni men Time magazine has reported were involved in leading the attack.

Mr Yara said BIN believed a German national of Middle Eastern descent, Reda 
Seyam, who was arrested in September, was also as "very important player" in 
terrorist attacks in the region.

He said police had failed to uncover Mr Seyam's role because they were not as 
skilled in interrogating terrorists as members of his organisation were. His 
remarks reflect long-standing tensions between Indonesia's police and 
intelligence services, especially since police became independent from the army 
two years ago.

So far, Reda Seyam has been charged only with immigration offences although he 
is suspected by Western intelligence of important roles in organising terrorist 
attacks and was found in possession of video tapes of military-style training 
in camps believed to be in central Sulawesi.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Xinhuanet
2002-12-02 15:25:11 
Police questions on cleric Ba'asyir remains unanswered 

JAKARTA, Dec. 2 (Xinhuanet) -- Indonesian Muslim cleric Abu Bakar Ba'asyir will 
continue to reject police questioning on his alleged involvement in a series of 
church bombings in 2000, unless the police fulfill his requests. 

"He will refuse to answer any questions unless the police release him from 
detention and meet him with Omar Al Faruq," Ba'asyir's lawyer Achmad Michdan 
was quoted by Detikcom online news service as saying Monday. 

Al Faruq is a suspected al Qaeda member arrested in June in Indonesia but now 
is detained in the United States. He reportedly told investigators in the US 
that Ba'asyir was involved in church bombings in nine towns across Indonesia 
and plotted to kill then Vice President Megawati Soekarnoputri in 1999. 

Elderly cleric Ba'asyir, 64, strongly denied any wrongdoing and refused to 
answer police questions. 

Imam Samudera, the confessed plotter of the Bali bombing that killed nearly 200 
people, admitted to exploding three churches in Jakarta and Batam, but it 
remains unclear whether the police will meet him with Ba'asyir. 

"We haven't been told by the police about the cross-question," Achmad said. 

Samudera so far doesn't say any link between him and Ba'asyir.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Malaysia National News Agency
December 02 , 2002 21:17PM     
Indon Uses Lead From M'sia In Investigation On Jemaah Islamiyah
By Openg Onn 

JAKARTA, Dec 2 (Bernama) -- Indonesia is using information from Malaysia as a 
lead in its investigation into the regional terror network Jemaah Islamiyah 
(JI), said to be behind the Oct 12 Bali bomb blast that killed almost 200 
people, mostly foreign tourists.

Indonesian National Police Chief, Gen Da'i Bachtiar said that the information 
include details about Muklas, the elder brother of a detained suspect, Amrozi, 
who had admitted to be part of a team responsible for the blast. 

"We are still gathering intelligence reports not only from the country but also 
from Malaysia," he told reporters after attending a function at the 
Presidential Palace here Monday. 

Amrozi, 30, who was arrested at his hometown, Paciran village, in the Lamongan 
District, East Java, on Nov 6, has singled out Muklas and Abu Bakar Ba'asyir as 
his idols in his religious struggle. 

Muklas, also known as Ali Gufron, has gone into hiding while Ba'asyir is now 
being detained by the Indonesian police after he was linked with the Christmas 
eve 2000 bombings of churches across the city. 

Latest intelligence reports show that the JI is being lead by Muklas after 
taking over from Hambali, also known as Riduan Isamuddin, who is believed to 
have fled to Pakistan from Malaysia to escape arrest. 

Like Muklas, Hambali, who is also an Indonesian, has stayed in Malaysia since 
the last several years. 

Amrozi has confessed to the police that he took the hardline path on Islam 
after listening to the teachings of his brother and Ba'asyir, founder of a 
pesantren, al Mukmin, in Ngruki, near Solo town, Central Java. 

Police are completing charges against Ba'asyir, leader of the Indonesian 
Mujahidin Council (MMI) over the high-profile church bombings following the 
result of police investigation into Omar al Faruq, who has been identified as a 
regional leader of al Qaeda, an international network blamed for the Sept 11 
attacks on Washington and New York. 

Omar al-Faruq, an Arab and now under US custody following his deportation from 
Indonesia, has admitted to have links with Ba'asyir in scheming the church 
bombings and planning to murder President Megawati Sukarnoputri. 

Malaysia and Singapore have arrested dozens of suspected members of JI which is 
fighting for the establishment of a regional Islamic state in South-East Asia. 
-- BERNAMA
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Lawyer says key Bali suspect did not receive orders 
02 December, 2002 13:05 GMT+08:00  
Jakarta (Reuters)

The key suspect in the October 12 bombings on Indonesia's Bali island was the 
brains behind the deadly attack and was not ordered to do it, a lawyer for 
suspect Imam Samudra said on Monday.

Lawyer Qadhar Faisal said his client, who police have said was the main plotter 
of the night club bombings that killed nearly 200 people, most of them foreign 
tourists, had confessed voluntarily to the attack.

"From the beginning of the idea to the action, he confessed involvement. He 
admitted he supplied the idea and did not receive orders from someone else," 
Faisal told Reuters.

Some Indonesian officials and police from other countries have said they 
believed international militant groups such as Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda 
network and Southeast Asia's Jemaah Islamiah group were behind the bombings.

Last week another lawyer for Samudra said his client had confessed to carrying 
out church bombings on the Indonesian island of Batam, near Singapore, in 
December 2000 with the help of a man known as Hambali. Some Western 
intelligence agents say Hambali is bin Laden's main man in Southeast Asia.

But a senior Indonesian police official said last week Hambali had been 
replaced by another Indonesian as the operational leader of Jemaah Islamiah.

Police have not made any connection between Hambali, whose whereabouts are not 
known, and the bombing in Bali's popular Kuta Beach night club strip.

Police say they have arrested 15 Indonesian men in connection with the 
bombings -- the worst since last year's September 11 attacks on New York and 
Washington -- but it is unclear how many of them are directly implicated.

Samudra is being held at national police headquarters in Jakarta and is due to 
be moved to Bali sometime this week for further questioning.

Police captured the 35-year-old engineering graduate in the western Java 
province of Banten on November 21 and said he confessed involvement the 
following day to the bombings on the tourist island.

Samudra faces the death penalty under new anti-terror regulations issued in the 
wake of the Bali attack. 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Time.com
Monday, Dec. 09, 2002
World / The Unending War
Inside The Bali Plot
-- A TIME inquiry unearths the roots of the bombings and shows how the 
masterminds remain at large
By Simon Elegant/Kuala Lumpur

The city-state of Singapore is an impeccably well-ordered place. Bubble gum, 
for instance, has been banned for 10 years because it is too messy. One year 
ago, Islamic terrorists hatched a plot to wreck the island's placidity. They 
planned to bomb the U.S., Australian and Israeli embassies, Singapore 
government buildings, and locales where sailors from the U.S. Navy's Seventh 
Fleet congregated. Singapore is well policed, however, and the plot was 
discovered; 13 people were arrested. But although the bombers were foiled, law-
enforcement agencies around the world, still digesting the attacks of Sept. 11, 
recognized that a new front in the terrorists' war had just opened in Southeast 
Asia.

The most brutal act of the war in Southeast Asia happened on Oct. 12, when two 
coordinated bombs killed, at the last count, 191 people — mainly vacationers 
out for a night's dancing — in two of the bars in the village of Kuta on the 
Indonesian island of Bali. Since the bombings, Indonesian police have arrested 
20 people said to have taken part in the plot. One of them is a man called 
Amrozi, who has confessed to transporting explosives to the site and was 
arrested a month after the bombings in his home village hundreds of miles from 
Bali on the island of Java. Another is Imam Samudra, allegedly one of the key 
planners of the attack, who was picked up on Nov. 21 after Indonesian police 
tracked his cell phone. TIME has discovered, however, that investigators 
believe the incident's real godfathers — those described by one Western 
intelligence source in the region as the "top tier of the operation, not the 
foot soldiers or even the sergeants and captains like Samudra"--remain at 
large. Law-enforcement officials think that these men will prove to be the 
link, long suspected, between Southeast Asian terrorist groups and the 
international network of Meanwhile, both the nature of the terrorists' targets 
and the methods they use to garner recruits have become clear.

A New Kind of Target
Six weeks after the Singapore plot was foiled, according to an fbi report, a 
meeting of terrorists took place in a village in southern Thailand. The 
gathering was held at the behest of Riduan Isamuddin, a leader of an 
organization based in Indonesia called Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) that has long been 
suspected of acting as a cover for terrorist acts. Isamuddin, better known as 
Hambali, fought in Afghanistan with the anti-Soviet mujahedin in the 1980s and 
is wanted by authorities in Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines and Indonesia. 
He was last seen in January 2001, when Indonesian authorities sought his arrest 
for involvement in a series of bombings the previous month that left 19 dead 
and scores wounded.

According to the fbi account, Hambali was furious at the failure of the 
Singapore plot and used the meeting in Thailand to announce an abrupt change in 
strategy. His group would avoid the risky business of attacking "hard targets," 
those located in big, well-policed cities or sites with obvious symbolic value. 
Instead, the terrorists would seek places where Americans or their allies went 
to shop, eat or vacation. Bali was the epitome of what they were aiming for; 
among those killed by the Kuta bombs were an estimated 75 Australians, 22 
Britons and 7 Americans. Hambali may now be in Bangkok or Pakistan. But 
Indonesian authorities have identified a person they claim to be the new leader 
of the terrorist cells within JI — Ali Ghufron, a radical Islamist from the 
village of Tenggulun in eastern Java. Amrozi is Ali Ghufron's younger brother.

A Family Business
Tenggulun is a very religious place. In 1992 two brothers of Ali Ghufron and 
Amrozi founded a school there to train local youngsters in Wahhabism, one of 
Islam's most severely orthodox strains. Most of Tenggulun's residents follow 
the more moderate Islam of Nahdlatul Ulama, an Indonesian religious society. 
Rivalry between the two groups erupted in 1987, when the tomb of a local saint 
was burned down. The culprit was Amrozi.

The fifth of 13 siblings, Amrozi was always something of a black sheep. At a 
televised press conference after his arrest last month, he told Indonesian 
national police chief Da'i Bachtiar that he was "a naughty person, sir — that's 
what my family always say about me." Unlike his brothers, most of whom 
graduated from religious schools, Amrozi never got beyond junior high and was 
best known for roaring through Tenggulun on one of his beloved motorbikes.

Amrozi revered Ali Ghufron, who was two years older and the most devout member 
of the family. In the 1970s Ali Ghufron, with his brothers Ali Imron and Amin 
Jabir, left Tenggulun to study at Ngruki, 250 miles to the east, in a school 
established by Abubakar Ba'asyir, a Muslim cleric widely believed to be the 
spiritual leader of JI. Ba'asyir is currently detained on suspicion of being 
involved in the series of bombings in the Indonesian capital of Jakarta in 
Christmas 2000. In the mid-1980s Ali Ghufron went to study in Malaysia, and a 
few years later Amrozi set out to look for him. Ali Ghufron had fallen in with 
a group of fellow Indonesians living in Malaysia, led by Abubakar and his 
mentor Abdullah Sungkar, who shared poverty and a militant brand of Islam. 
Abubakar and Sungkar had fled Indonesia to avoid being thrown in prison by the 
government of President Suharto for espousing radical views.

Amrozi tracked his brother to the town of Ulu Tiram in the southern Malaysian 
state of Johor. By then Ali Ghufron was known as Mukhlas and was a revered 
teacher at a madrasah. Amrozi feared his lack of piety would not please 
Mukhlas. So, according to I Made Mangku Pastika, the general leading the Bali 
investigation, Amrozi prayed five times each day and read the Koran each night. 
When he felt he was ready to seek his brother's blessing, he was brought into 
an Islamic school near the tiny settlement of Sungei Tiram. The school was 
Militant U. Among those who gathered there, according to regional intelligence 
officials, were Abubakar, Sungkar (who died of natural causes in 1999), Hambali 
and Mukhlas. The four men used the madrasah as a base for recruiting their 
earliest disciples. One of the first was Amrozi. "It was Mas [brother] Mukhlas 
who raised my awareness to fight the injustice toward Islam," Amrozi told 
police.

The Two Brothers
In 1995 Amrozi was sent home and there opened a garage. Villagers say he was a 
changed man, always dressing in religious robes instead of the jeans he had 
previously favored. In 2000, police say, Amrozi was approached by Samudra for 
help in obtaining explosives for use in the conflict between Muslims and 
Christians then raging in the Indonesian city of Ambon. "I went to Surabaya and 
bought the materials," Amrozi later recounted.

Meanwhile, his big brother had been even busier. He spent time in Singapore 
recruiting a group to conduct surveillance of possible targets for terrorist 
strikes. According to Singaporean police, Mukhlas employed his relatives. One 
of those arrested in January 2000 was Hashim bin Abbas, his brother-in-law. The 
team's plans were foiled when a group of Islamic radicals associated with 
Hambali botched a bank robbery in a Kuala Lumpur suburb. Two of them were 
killed, and one was captured. Astonished Malaysian police began piecing 
together the world of militant Islam. More raids and arrests followed, and 
these led police to the Sungei Tiram madrasah, which was shut down in May 2001.

Mukhlas, forewarned, had fled back to Tenggulun. In late 2001, according to 
police and intelligence officials, he and Hambali traveled to Afghanistan. It 
is not clear if Mukhlas was at the meeting in Thailand at which Hambali 
announced his soft-targets strategy. But regional intelligence officials say 
they are certain that Hambali soon handed over day-to-day control over JI's 
terrorist operations to Mukhlas. "Hambali was too well known," a Malaysian 
official says. "He could still give orders, but he had to get out of the 
region."

Mukhlas and Hambali, says Rohan Gunaratna, author of a leading work on al-
Qaeda, are similar in style. "They are both very experienced operatives who 
speak little but demonstrate their thinking through action." They share a 
ruthlessness in delegating the most dangerous jobs to subordinates, friends or 
family. Among the 19 killed by the 15 bombs that went off in Jakarta on Dec. 
24, 2000, were three of Hambali's own men. Regional intelligence officials 
believe that Mukhlas was intimately involved in conceiving and planning the 
Bali attack, although he appears to have delegated operational authority to 
Samudra.

The Three Strangers
Amrozi met with Samudra several times in August and September this year to 
discuss Bali, according to his confession to Indonesian police. The last time 
they met, "we had a chat after praying together at the Great Mosque in Solo," 
he said to police. Samudra told Amrozi he would send some cash. Amrozi bought 
the van and the chemicals used in the bombing and ferried them to Bali. When 
he, Samudra and a number of the other planners met at the resort island, Amrozi 
was reminded of his place in the pecking order. "At one point I asked them 
where I was supposed to take the car and explosives," Amrozi recounted. "But 
[Samudra] told me it was not my business anymore." According to a source 
familiar with a Nov. 15 interrogation, Amrozi disclosed that the target of the 
group's main bomb was changed at the last moment by the intervention of three 
mysterious strangers. Originally, Amrozi told his captors, the group had 
planned to target only the U.S. consulate in Denpasar, Bali's capital. But the 
strangers suggested that only a token bomb be left at the empty consulate; the 
main effort was to be concentrated on the Kuta bars.

After the Bali bombings, the team dispersed. Patient police work soon led the 
authorities to Amrozi, who had used his own name to buy the van that carried 
the main bomb. Samudra, more experienced, managed to stay on the lam for five 
weeks, carefully limiting his cell-phone conversations to 20 seconds to foil 
police scanning. The latest technology, however, requires only a few seconds to 
trace a call, and on Nov. 21 police tracked down Samudra and nabbed two of his 
bodyguards. They said their boss planned to board a bus about to leave on a 
ferry to Pekanbaru, on the island of Sumatra. Two policemen arrested Samudra. 
Indonesian police say he later confessed to being the chief planner of the Bali 
bombings and to a string of unsolved crimes. Samudra, according to police 
sources, said one of the bombs that exploded in Kuta was, as he put it, 
a "martyr bomb," carried by a man known as Iqbal. If that proves true, Kuta 
would be the first known suicide bombing in Southeast Asia. Police are 
currently comparing dna from more than 400 body parts found in Bali with a 
sample from Iqbal's mother. Last week Malaysian authorities arrested four more 
suspected terrorists who they say had been trained as suicide bombers.

The Links with Al-Qaeda
Regional intelligence sources tell TIME the police have few clues as to the 
whereabouts of three critical suspects in the Bali attack. Their identities 
have not yet been officially revealed, but sources tell TIME the list is headed 
by a Yemeni national named Syafullah, a senior al-Qaeda operative who is 
alleged to have been involved in the 1996 bombings of a U.S. military barracks 
in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, that killed 19 servicemen. Syafullah would provide 
the direct link between JI and al-Qaeda that investigators have long suspected 
but have been unable to prove conclusively. Also wanted are a Malaysian named 
Zubair, who fought in Afghanistan in the late 1980s, and an Indonesian named 
Syawal, who is married to Sungkar's daughter. Investigators believe that Syawal 
was an instructor at a camp on the island of Sulawesi used by al-Qaeda for 
training recruits.

Amrozi, now being held in Bali and possibly facing the death penalty, has shown 
little remorse. At a police press conference, General Pastika relayed to 
Amrozi's relatives his feelings of regret for the trouble he has caused. About 
his victims, Amrozi had nothing to say except that he was sorry he had killed 
so few Americans. Australians, Britons and anyone who hangs out with them in 
the places where expats and vacationers congregate — the nationality hardly 
matters. All are now soft targets in the sights of Southeast Asia's deadly 
families of terror.
— With reporting by Baradan Kuppusamy/Sungei Tiram, Zamira Loebis/Tenggulun, 
Mageswary Ramakhrishnan/Kuala Lumpur and Jason Tedjasukmana/Bali
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
TimeAsia.com
December 9, 2002/ Vol. 160 No. 22
Asia
Suicidal Terror or Error?
-- Police say one Bali bomber may have been on a suicide mission. Should Asia 
brace for more strikes?  
By Simon Elegant/Singapore 

Was one of the perpetrators of the Bali massacre a suicide bomber? Or was he an 
ordinary jihad footsoldier who accidentally blew himself up? An account of what 
happened Oct. 12 by one witness strongly suggests the latter. According to 
Indonesian police sources who interrogated the witness, the terrorist named 
Iqbal entered the jam-packed Paddy's Irish Pub just after 11 p.m. and headed 
for the restrooms at the back, where he deposited a plastic bag. The witness—
whose identity is being kept secret by police—entered the men's room as Iqbal 
was leaving and, spotting the bag, called out after him: "Hey, you left your 
bag in the toilet." Iqbal, flustered, returned, retrieved his mysterious 
package, and walked towards the front of the bar. Then came the blast that 
killed Iqbal and eight others. Moments later, a second, much larger bomb 
exploded nearby, killing at least 180 more. The witness couldn't say if the 
explosives detonated in the bomber's hands or if he had dropped the bag while 
trying to flee. 

Whether Iqbal planned to martyr himself may seem coldly irrelevant to the 
families of the dead. But the question is of critical importance to security 
officials in Southeast Asia as they assess the likelihood of future attacks and 
formulate defense plans. Australian police said on Nov. 28 that the five-member 
team suspected of carrying out the Paddy's attack had formed a suicide pact 
(although only Iqbal died). Singapore Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong said 
indications of suicide elements among Muslim extremists in the region 
posed "grave challenges" to governments trying to contain the terrorist threat. 
The day after Goh's warning, suicide car-bombers killed at least 15 people in 
the Kenyan coastal city of Mombasa. 

If truly a suicide attack, the Paddy's bomb marks a grim milestone: the first 
time in memory a Southeast Asian Muslim terrorist has sacrificed his own life 
to kill others. After the arrest last week in Malaysia of four radicals 
allegedly trained as suicide bombers, some analysts fear that a deadlier wave 
of terror may be unleashed upon the region. "In every conflict there comes a 
point when it produces the kind of person willing to die," says Rohan 
Gunaratna, author of the book Inside al-Qaeda. "That time is now ripe in 
Southeast Asia." 

But despite growing fears, doubts remain that there are more than a handful of 
fanatical militants in the region willing to die for their cause. The vast 
majority of the region's Muslims practice a moderate, tolerant form of Islam 
that utterly rejects the idea that slaughtering innocent civilians is a method 
of holy warfare. Gunaratna concedes that when it comes to the crunch, most 
militants balk at kamikaze-style attacks. He recounts a telling anecdote about 
Riduan Isamuddin, a.k.a. Hambali, the suspected leader of the regional terror 
network Jemaah Islamiah (JI), widely blamed for the Bali blasts and other 
deadly bombings. Hambali once asked a group of about 20 potential JI recruits 
how many would be willing to give up their lives for the cause. "Only one 
fellow put up his hand," Gunaratna laughs. "Hambali was not very happy at all." 

That meeting took place in the late-'90s in Malaysia. But the same reluctance 
can be seen in Indonesia years later. In his confession to U.S. interrogators, 
al-Qaeda's point man in Southeast Asia, Omar al-Faruq, described aborting a 
plan to bomb a U.S. Navy ship docked in the Indonesian port of Surabaya last 
May because he couldn't find non-Arab volunteers willing to die in the 
operation. 

As for Iqbal, evidence suggests he was unlucky. After all, the bombmaking 
expertise of Imam Samudra, the alleged coordinator of the Bali bombing and the 
man who passed Iqbal the explosives, is questionable. During a wave of bombings 
across Indonesia that left 19 dead over Christmas 2000, in which Samudra said 
he played an instrumental role, three of the attackers died when their devices 
exploded prematurely. Even more telling is the story of the last bomber Samudra 
personally sent out on a mission before Bali: the hapless Taufik Abdul Halim. 
According to his own court testimony, Taufik was dispatched to a Jakarta 
shopping mall in August 2001 with a bomb concealed in a plastic bag. He reached 
the target, but the bomb went off before he could escape, blowing off part of 
his leg. 

Could the same thing have happened in Paddy's? Very possibly, police 
investigators say. But police also say it is Samudra who, after his arrest, 
told them Iqbal was a suicide bomber. General I Made Mangku Pastika, head of 
the Bali investigation, thinks the apparent contradiction is easily resolved. 
He says Samudra is claiming Iqbal deliberately killed himself "in order to 
cover responsibility to the family." In other words, the man alleged to have 
played a key role in the massacre of nearly 200 people feels guilty that he may 
have also caused the death of a fellow terrorist.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
New York Times
December 2, 2002
Bali's Broken Economy: As Fragile as an Eggshell
By Jane Perlez

Denpasar, Indonesia — His fingers clasp a long brush and with the finest of 
strokes, Nyoman Kantor paints the figures of a Balinese myth onto eggshell. 
Luscious reds, greens and yellows sparkle on the egg, a memento popular with 
tourists who come to Mr. Kantor's outdoor studio and salesroom. Roughly 
speaking, these $10 eggs are Bali's answer to Fabergé's jeweled versions of a 
century ago.

But these days, business is about as slow as it has ever been. Bali's tourism 
collapsed after the terrorist attack on a disco in October, and the return of 
the foreign visitors is only slowly starting again.

In the weeks after the attack, Mr. Kantor, 48, said he did not sell any of his 
goose eggs. They take two days to paint, and he makes about a $5 profit on each 
one. "I haven't been to the hotels to sell because there are so few customers," 
he said. 

About half of Bali's economy is based on tourism, according to the World Bank, 
a heavy reliance for a society accustomed to some of the highest standards of 
living in Indonesia. In the last decade, rice fields have been eaten up by 
hotel developments in the southern half of the island, and increasing numbers 
of Balinese have moved from agricultural livelihoods to work in tourism. 

Hoteliers say each room generates 25 jobs: receptionists, cooks, gardeners, 
money-changers, guides, dancers for nighttime entertainment, even lifeguards 
for protection at the beach. 

Indications of an early recovery are not encouraging, economists say. 

Many upmarket hotels are reporting occupancy rates of less than 20 percent. 
Some low-rent hotels have closed temporarily. Taxi drivers complain they have 
few passengers. Some stores are offering sizable discounts for their carved 
wood furniture and trendy clothes.

The World Bank says about 1.7 million people work in Bali, and according to the 
direst estimates, as many as half could become unemployed if the tourism 
continues to slump. 

But the worst may not happen.

Much depends on how fast the investigation into the terrorist attack proceeds, 
economists say. If the inquiry proceeds quickly and suspects continue to be 
arrested, foreign governments will consider removing the travel warnings that 
are discouraging tourists, Western officials predict. 

Japan, Singapore and other Asian countries do not have travel warnings on 
Indonesia, and their citizens are traveling again to Bali. The United States, 
Australia and Britain have not significantly modified the travel warnings they 
issued after the terrorist attack. Security has been visibly improved at the 
airport at Denpasar and the major hotels now have policemen patrolling their 
grounds. 

While Bali waits for the foreigners to return, the Bali Tourism Board has begun 
a campaign to stimulate the domestic market. The idea was to fill vacant hotel 
rooms with Indonesians, who often take time off after Ramadan. The response has 
been good, said the minister of trade, Rini Mariani Soewandi.

"We have to get Garuda to restore the flights they have cut," she said, 
referring to the national airline. 

One of the biggest problems facing the Balinese is how to maintain their 
standard of living. 

"All the social indicators in Bali are above average," said K. Sarwar Lateef, 
the senior adviser to the World Bank in Indonesia. "There are strong traditions 
of schooling." The World Bank is working on a plan to ensure that parents who 
become unemployed can still pay their children's school fees, he said.

Another challenge is how to help the Balinese who have loans to pay back. 

Mr. Kantor's 23-year-old son, I Made Muliana, who is also an egg painter, 
recently bought a motorbike. "The bike is good for going to the hotels to 
sell," said Mr. Muliana. He owes the bank $30 a month for the next three years, 
he said. How was he going to pay the installments? Mr. Muliana shrugged. 

At the Oberoi Hotel, a five-star resort on the ocean, many employees have taken 
loans, said the general manager, Kamal K. Kaul. About 75 percent of staff 
salaries came from service charges placed on customers' bills, he said. 

"For two decades staff incomes have been going up," Mr. Kaul said. "This attack 
is something they never dreamed would happen. These realities of modern life 
the Balinese will have to learn to cope with."

Like most people involved with Bali, Mr. Kaul was relatively upbeat. On the 
commercial side, Christmas bookings were holding, he said.

The Hindu religious leaders have appealed to the Balinese to stay calm. "For 
the Balinese, life is all about seeking balance," Mr. Kaul said. "Many are 
reverting to prayer." 

In a signal of long-term confidence, Starbucks still plans to open in Bali, 
said Anthony Cottan, the country general manager. 

A Starbucks store was planned not far from the Sari Club, the target of the 
attack that killed more than 180 people, Mr. Cottan said. "Our plan was to open 
in the first quarter next year. We feel that there might be only a six-month 
delay," he said. "We're still very enthusiastic." 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Jakarta Post.com
Latest News
12/2/2002 7:48:34 PM
Belo to testify in Indonesian court via TV link 

JAKARTA (JP): Nobel Peace prizewinner and retired East Timor bishop Carlos 
Ximenes Belo is due to testify this month to Indonesia's human rights court via 
a televised link, a court spokesman said on Monday. 

"I have received information that Bishop Belo's testimony will be conducted 
through teleconference," Judge Andi Samsan Nganro told AFP. 

Belo, who last week resigned as bishop, will give evidence in mid-December in 
the trials of former regional military chief Maj. Gen. Adam Damiri and ex-East 
Timor military chief Nur Muis, Andi said. 

Both men are accused of responsibility for military-backed militia violence 
before and after East Timor's vote to break away from Indonesia in August 1999. 
The violence included an attack by pro-Jakarta militia on Belo's refugee-packed 
home in September which left 10 people dead. 

Andi said he had no information on why Belo would not appear in person.