Home terrorists emerge as Indonesia main bomb suspects
By John Aglionby in Jakarta
Home-grown Islamist terrorists, probably with ties to Jemaah Islamiah, the al-Qaeda-linked group, were the prime suspects for yesterday's bombing of two luxurious hotels in the Indonesian capital.
The national police chief, General Bambang Danuri, declared that the attacks on the JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotels were both carried out by suicide attackers using bombs "identical" to two home-made devices seized earlier this week during a raid on Islamists in central Java.
JI's stated goal has long been to establish an Islamist caliphate in south-east Asia and purge the world's most populous Muslimmajority nation of its moderate tendencies.
It was blamed for the Bali bombings in 2002 and 2005, the 2003 attack on the same JW Marriott hotel and the 2004 bombing outside the Australian embassy in Jakarta.
Since then, experts say, it has splintered. The Australian Strategic Policy Institute, which published a report on JI on Thursday, says leadership tensions and the recent release from jail of about 100 radicals imprisoned over the past seven years "raise the possibility that splinter factions might now seek to re-energise the movement through violent attacks".
Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who was re-elected as president this month, suggested none too subtly in an emotional speech at the presidential palace that his political opponents might have been involved.
While he did not name anyone, he left little doubt he was referring to Prab-owo Subianto, one-time son-in-law of the late dictator Suharto and running mate of Mr Yudhoyono's rival and predecessor, Megawati Sukarnoputri, in this month's election.
Mr Prabowo, a former general who has admitted to dirty tricks including kidnapping student activists during the dying days of the Suharto regime, has refused to acknowledge Mr Yudhoyono's victory, citing voting irregularities. But he vehemently denied any involvement in yesterday's bombings.
Sidney Jones of the International Crisis Group, an expert on Indonesia and south-east Asian radical Islam, said a politically- driven attack would be a "radical departure for Indonesia". There was a wide cast of Islamist suspects to choose from instead, she said.
"There are about 12 dangerous figures involved in radical activities who are fugitives and have nothing to lose by doing something like this attack," she said.
Leading the list of potential plotters is Noordin Top, a Malaysian explosives expert and JI's military commander, who led a terrorist cell with compatriot Azahari Husein until security forces shot the latter in November 2005. Close behind him are Dulmatin, a bombmaker who is one of the few involved in the 2002 Bali bombing still at large, and Umar Patek,who is thought to be in the southern Philippines.
Abu Bakar Bashir, JI's joint founder and spiritual leader, who was widely believed to have been invol-ved in the 2002 Bali attacks, formed a new group, Jamaah Anshorut Tauhid, in 2008. He preaches anti-western sermons but is not thought to be orchestrating terrorist attacks.
Indonesia's counterterr-orist campaign has won high marks from governments round the world in the past five years, partly because of its success in detecting plots and arresting militants before they become active. But it is also thanks to success in persuading radicals to change their ways, mainly through offering incentives such as funding children's schooling. That has opened divisions within the radical movement, as some groups turn away from violence to work with the authorities.
The Australian Strategic Policy Institute report, by Noor Huda Ismail and Carl Ungerer, said those divisions had made it harder to track some of the most hardened terrorists. "The profile of the would-be radical as young, male, religiously devout, alienated, angry, disenfranchised, and living on the edges of society is outdated and not reflective of the broader JI membership," it said.
The authors believe militants are recruited from diverse backgrounds and then radicalised. "Some admit to 'shopping' online for religious edicts that would support violent jihad," the report said.
Ms Jones believes an operation such as the double hotel bombing "would have taken months to plan".