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| Southeast Asia |
| Bali boomers just hate those Americans... |
| 2002-11-08 |
| The Bali bombers "hate Americans" and their real targets were U.S. citizens in the nightclub attacks that killed nearly 200 people on the resort island, a top investigator said Friday, citing the confession of a key suspect. Guess it's too bad all those westerners look alike, huh? But what the hell? An infidel's an infidel — one's as good as another, as long as they're dead, right? The reported confession of an Indonesian man identified as Amrozi has prompted more arrests and linked the blasts to a fugitive, Riduan Isamudin, also known as Hambali, who has been tied to the Sept. 11 hijackers. And Hambali's tied to Bashir, who says he knows nothing about it, he's just a simple holy man... The confession was the first major breakthrough in the case, and officials said Friday that Amrozi had admitted to taking part in a string of terror attacks in Indonesia. Referring to the Oct. 12 bombings in Bali, Maj. Gen. I Made Mangku Pastika said the goal was "to kill as many Americans" as possible. "They hate Americans. They tried to find where the Americans are gathering. That is in Bali. But they were not that happy because Australians were killed in big numbers," Pastika said. The vast majority of the dead were Australians. Well, shucks. We wouldn't want them to be unhappy, bless their bloodthirsty little Islamist hearts... Police swept through Amrozi's home village in East Java province on Friday, arresting the principal of an Islamic school and the owner of a shop where bomb chemicals were allegedly bought. Blame for the attack is increasingly turning to Jemaah Islamiyah — the al-Qaida linked terror group said to be seeking a pan-Islamic state in Southeast Asia. You know, that group that Vice President Hamzah Haz says isn't active in Indonesia? No threat at all, really... Pastika didn't say who Amrozi was working for, but said his younger brother, identified only as Mukhlas, was a member of Jemaah Islamiyah. The investigator said Amrozi, who was arrested Tuesday in his home village of Tenggulun, led authorities to a residence in Denpasar, Bali's capital, where a forensic unit found residue of the explosives used in the bombings. He started yakking pretty quick. Those large men with the moustachios and the truncheons can be pretty good, when they want to be... Police said Amrozi owned the L300 Mitsubishi minivan laden with at least 110 pounds of explosives that blew up outside a packed nightclub on Bali. Pastika said Amrozi confessed after being confronted with evidence that included receipts from a chemical company for materials used in making the Bali bomb. That and the title to the remains of his car. He really must be very Amrozi told police he bought a ton of ammonium chlorate, sulfur and aluminum, purchasing between 220 and 440 pounds at a time over six months to avoid raising suspicion. Only 220 pounds of explosives were used in the Bali bombings, Pastika said, and it is unclear where the rest is. Amrozi said plans for the bombing began in earnest in early September and that two or three men began building the bomb on Oct. 5, a few days after he purchased the van used to carry the explosives. Amrozi left Bali two days before the attack. "Huh huh! No one will ever know!" Pastika said detectives believe six to 10 people were involved in the two nightclub bombings that turned one of Asia's most frequented tourist destinations into an inferno. "We have their names already," Pastika said. "We know their identities. What the police are doing now is searching throughout the country." Take your time, guys... Police said Friday they raided three locations in Tenggulun, searching the home of Amrozi's father's first wife and two homes owned by a friend of Amrozi's. "We raided the three places because we thought he kept explosives and guns in those places," said a police detective, who refused to be named. "But when we went there, someone had taken all his belongings." Sounds like Mahmoud the Weasel's helping out on this case, doesn't it? Police also said they detained the principal of Tenggulun's Al Islam school, where Amrozi was a frequent visitor. In addition, they detained the owner of a shop in Surabaya, East Java's capital, where Amrozi allegedly bought chemicals used in the Bali blasts, according to the state-run Antara news agency. "I would have never have believed that this school is a center of terrorist activity," Sadi Suheda, a teacher at the Al Islam school. "I'm shocked. Our lives have been completely disrupted." "Yasss... I'm shocked! Shocked!" Police spokesman Brig. Gen. Edward Aritonang said Amrozi acknowledged he knows two Muslim clerics said to be leaders of Jemaah Islamiyah — the fugitive Isamudin and Abu Bakar Bashir, who is detained in a Jakarta hospital. Other intelligence officials in Bali, speaking on condition of anonymity, also said Amrozi admitted he met personally with the two clerics. Well, then, he's obviously a CIA agent, isn't he? Guess you can discount all of his testimony... The officials said Amrozi has confessed to taking part in a bomb blast at the Jakarta Stock Exchange that killed 15 people in 2000. He also acknowledged involvement in the bombing of the Philippines ambassador's residence in Jakarta in 2000 and the bombing of the Philippines consulate in North Sulawesi province on Oct. 12, the officials said. "I mean, before I discovered explosives, my life had no meaning..." Aritonang said Amrozi told investigators he visited several locations in Bali and several countries, including Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, before the bombings. When you're an Islamist, you get to travel free. There's always some nice Arabian to pick up the airfare, pay for a rental car and a hotel, even to provide some walking-around money... On Friday, Zachary Abuza, a security analyst who has written extensively on al-Qaida, said Hambali convened a meeting earlier this year in Thailand after several Jemaah Islamiyah members were arrested in Singapore and Malaysia for planning attacks on Western interests there. "One Jemaah Islamiyah member I interviewed said that Hambali was very angry about the arrest of Jemaah Islamiyah members in Singapore and Malaysia," Abuza said. "Instead of going after symbolic hard targets like U.S. embassies, he authorized members to go after soft targets such as tourist spots." The patrons of tourist traps are so much less likely to be armed, aren't they? |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |
| #2 Actually, the number of US victims has risen to 6 by some counts and 9 by others. The latest confirmed list of the dead is far from complete, but shows 6 names tied to the USA. |
| Posted by: Dan Hartung 2002-11-08 23:18:38 |
| #1 Almost two hundred people were killed in Bali, mostly Balinese and Australians. Number of Americans killed? Two. If that sounds familiar, remember the embassy bombings in Africa? Kenya: 12 American diplomats and ca. 200 Kenyan citizens killed. Injured included 10 Americans and something like _4,000_ Kenyans. Tanzania: 11 Tanzanians killed. Injured were 85 locals and 2 Americans. These terrorists aren't real shy about taking out everybody in a multi-block area just to get to a few children of the Great Satan. A lot of people better pray we don't start thinking that way. |
| Posted by: Patrick Phillips 2002-11-08 15:15:47 |