Maybe now the Indonesians will really get serious, and start going after the pious Mullahs and paramilitary groups that have sprung up all over the country.
The terrorist suspected of blowing up Jakarta’s Marriott Hotel was a member of a new suicide brigade of up to 15 bombers who are preparing more attacks, Indonesian police have warned. Asmar Latin Sani, whose head was found on the fifth floor of the shattered hotel, was a member of Laskar Khos, an Arabic phrase meaning Special Force, whose members were prepared to die in their attacks, a police source told the Herald. The group was formed inside Jemaah Islamiah, the organisation accused of masterminding the Marriott and Bali atrocities. A separate police source told Tempo magazine that a man named Mustafa, one of five JI members arrested in Jakarta in mid-July, had confessed to being the commander of Laskar Khos. He told police the group had between 10 and 15 members skilled in bomb-making who were preparing to carry out suicide attacks. The Herald source said that besides Asmar, one Laskar Khos member named Ichwanudin had shot himself when police tried to arrest him during raids on JI hideouts in Semarang and Jakarta last month. Sidney Jones, a JI expert and director of the Jakarta branch of the International Crisis Group, says Laskar Khos exists and is "an elite operations unit".
The revelations came as new information emerged that the Jakarta offices of United States oil companies were on a list of JI targets. The Los Angeles Times reported that representatives of seven companies — Halliburton, Exxon-Mobil, Unocal, Caltex Indonesia, Conoco Phillips, Union Texas and Premier Oil — had attended a meeting at the US embassy before the Marriott bombing where Indonesian police had warned they were on the list. Company representatives confirmed the meeting yesterday but declined to discuss what new security measures had been taken. Police had also reportedly found a hand-drawn map showing the location of Halliburton’s office in south Jakarta. |