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Friday July 4, 5:26 PMIndonesia raids point to evolving militant tacticsJAKARTA, July 4 (Reuters) - The detentions of Islamic militants suspected of plotting to attack Western targets in Indonesia show how groups are evolving after recent setbacks and remain dangerous, analysts and police said on Friday.Ten suspects, including a Singaporean, were detained and a large cache of bombs found in recent raids in Palembang, 425 km (260 miles) northwest of Jakarta, and other areas in South Sumatra. The group had initially been plotting to attack a cafe popular with tourists in Bukittinggi, West Sumatra, a police source said, but had switched to Western targets in Jakarta. The detentions were potentially "very significant" and the two dozen bombs found could have been deadly, said Carl Ungerer of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute. "Depending on where you set it off it could kill a lot of people, possibly as large as the original Bali bombing," he said, referring to the 2002 Bali nightclub blasts that killed 202 people, mainly foreign tourists. Indonesia's national police chief, Sutanto, said the 20 active bombs, including 16 pipe bombs and tupperware bombs, were more deadly than in previous attacks. "The technique now is they made (the bombs), not only with ball bearings but also bullets," Sutanto said. "So when there's a explosion of course the effect is double." Police believe the group took part in the assassination of a priest in Palembang last year and also a failed attempt to kill a priest in Bandung in West Java in 2005. The suspects have also been linked to key figures involved in regional militant network Jemaah Islamiah (JI) including Noordin Mohammad Top, a fugitive Malaysian wanted for a string of attacks in Indonesia, and bomb-maker Azahari Husin, another Malaysian killed in a shootout with police in East Java in 2005. AWAITING ORDERS The latest detentions may shed light on connections between different militant Islamic groups in Indonesia, said Sidney Jones, an analyst with the International Crisis Group. "I think the most interesting thing is what the connection is between the people who conducted that attack on the priest in Bandung in late 2005 and the people who are in JI or associated with Noordin, because the people who did that attack were not JI," she said. Noordin Top is believed to have set up a splinter group within JI backing more violent methods. The group in Sumatra was believed to be awaiting a signal from their leader before acting, a police source told Reuters. "Now they were just waiting for funds from their Amir (leader) in Java before they launched the attack. But they were caught first," said the source, who declined to be identified. The group's links with militants in the region are also being scrutinised, particularly the Singaporean captured, who police identified only as "MH" and said was a bomb-making expert. Security expert Rohan Gunaratna identified the Singaporean as Mohammed Hassan and said he undertaken training in Afghanistan, where he had met Osama bin Laden. Hassan was suspected of working closely with Mas Selamat bin Kastari, the suspected leader of JI's operations in Singapore, on a plot to crash a plane into Singapore's Changi Airport in 2002, he said. Kastari escaped from a Singapore jail earlier this year. "He is a very significant and senior member of the JI," said Gunaratna, author of "Inside Al Qaeda: Global Network of Terror". Analysts said that the detentions showed that militant groups had been able to reform networks in Sumatra, from where police previously tracked down a group responsible for the 2003 car bombing at the J.W. Marriott hotel in Jakarta. There have been no major attacks in Indonesia for more than two years and raids, often involving Detachment 88, a police unit funded and trained by the United States and Australia, have led to the arrest of hundreds of militant suspects. In addition, some experts say mainstream members of JI, which wants to create an Islamic caliphate in Southeast Asia, felt deadly attacks had hurt their cause and had killed Muslims. (Additional reporting by Telly Nathalia and Melanie Lee in Singapore; Editing by Alex Richardson) |
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