Indonesia's military will join a nationwide hunt for those behind the weekend suicide bombings in Bali, a senior officer said on Thursday, as police confirmed three more Australians were among the dead. Hundreds of thousands of police have already been mobilized to track down the masterminds of the attacks on three packed restaurants on the resort island. The three young bombers killed themselves and 19 others on Saturday night, and 146 were wounded.The prime targets in the manhunt are Malaysian Islamic militants, Azahari bin Husin and Noordin M. Top. Officials say they are the leaders of the al Qaeda-linked Jemaah Islamiah network, blamed for a series of earlier attacks in Indonesia, including one in Bali three years ago which killed 202 people. "In this case we will coordinate with Indonesian police by sharing intelligence information (and) are instructed to re-activate the territorial command," Indonesia military spokesman Achmad Yani Basuki said. "Our personnel will be placed in villages to gain information from common people. We call on the people to share with us any information," he added.
The concept of a military territorial command structure reaching down to the village level is controversial. During the decades-long rule of autocrat president Suharto, which ended in 1998, it was seen as a tool for enforcing his iron-fisted control. But Indonesia military commander General Endriartono Sutarto has said abuse will not happen this time.