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| Southeast Asia |
| Bali bombers still on the loose |
| 2004-03-30 |
| Some key organisers of the Bali bombings are still at large and capable of pulling off more terror attacks, says an analyst credited with unravelling the deadly Jemaah Islamiyah network. Sidney Jones, Indonesian project director for the International Crisis Group, is in Wellington briefing key Government officials. She said there was a core group of as many as 10 people still out there. Most of the 30 involved in the Bali bombing had been caught but three master technicians were still at large, including Jemaah Islamiyah's head of military operations, Zulkirnaen. They still had the potential to strike, though their ability to mount other major attacks was restricted. With phone systems under surveillance, communications were much more difficult and their ability to co-ordinate and plan was hampered by the fact key people were on the run. Ms Jones said Jemaah Islamiyah was also split between those who wanted to follow Osama bin Laden's call to attack the West and those who wanted to follow a longer term strategy of establishing an Islamic state in Indonesia. Even the Bali and Marriott Hotel bombings were not popular with a large part of the network. She praised the Indonesian police – "For going after terrorist suspects, ferreting them out, arresting them and trying them in relatively speedy and open trials, Indonesia gets far higher marks than the US with all its suspects in Guantanamo Bay." Ms Jones said rooting out corruption was vital in the fight against terrorism. "If you want to put together a comprehensive counter-terrorism strategy you need to look beyond locking up the terrorists and move to strengthening the broader democratic institutions in the country. Corruption is far more important in Indonesia than people realise because as long as you can buy travel documents, identity cards, explosives and buy off policemen and bank managers the whole operation of terrorism is facilitated." Indonesia needed a leader who made fighting corruption a top national priority but unfortunately none of the political leaders had shown the slightest interest in curbing it. Ms Jones said her role in identifying key Jemaah Islamiyah figures, including Hambali and Abu Bakar Bashir, went back to the mid-1980s when she was working for Amnesty International. "Bashir was a prisoner that Amnesty was thinking of taking up as a prisoner of conscience." Amnesty did a lot of work on people close to the Jemaah Islamiyah network but people like Bashir were not taken up because of their violence. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |
| #4 See how the American worker's SSI was depleted. PLEASE NOTE: Delete spaces in censored URL below. http://A mericanD efenseL eague.com/jewsnssi.htm |
| Posted by: Johnson TROLL 2004-03-30 7:38:06 AM |
| #3 Jones is actually a pretty competent analyst. I tend to trust her research. |
| Posted by: Fred 2004-03-30 9:05:06 PM |
| #2 Are you sure she is not Sydney James? The whole of what she says, is a joke. "says an analyst credited with unravelling the deadly Jemaah Islamiyah network. " Yeah, pull the other one. |
| Posted by: tipper 2004-03-30 9:15:06 AM |
| #1 [Troll droppings deleted] |
| Posted by: Smith TROLL 2004-03-30 7:38:06 AM |