http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,16840982%255E601,00.html
First bomber named as hunt gathers pace Simon Kearney and Stephen Fitzpatrick October 07, 2005 FIVE elite police teams began scouring the Indonesian archipelago by helicopter yesterday as the hunt for senior members of the Bali terror network was stepped up after the first suicide bomber was identified. Police in Surakarta, central Java, confirmed yesterday a man known as Gareng had been "a target of our investigations" since well before the weekend's blasts, but that he had recently escaped their surveillance. Police believe Gareng was the suicide bomber responsible for the last of three attacks on Saturday night. Husband and wife Colin and Fiona Zwolinski and Jennifer Williamson, all of Newcastle in NSW, were killed in that assault, on Nyoman Cafe on Jimbaran Bay, south of Kuta. Mrs Williamson's husband, Bruce, and others from a large group of Newcastle holidaymakers were seriously injured. Surakarta police said they recognised Gareng from their files on Wednesday, after photographs of the three suicide bombers were distributed by investigators in Denpasar and published in newspapers early this week. "We matched that to an old photograph we have," a Surakarta investigator said. A source close to senior police in Jakarta said the investigation was now focused on searching for relatives and friends of the bombers, none of whose identities has been publicly released, and on rounding up people involved with the 2002 attacks. One of the teams is focused on east Java, where investigations are homing in on an area in the north around the town of Lamongan, near the provincial capital, Surabaya. Convicted 2002 Bali bomber Amrozi was arrested in the same region, at his home in the village of Tenggulun. The field teams are under the command of Indonesian counter-terrorism chief Gorries Mere. Another team is based in East Nusa Tenggara province, the capital of which is Lombok, immediately to the east of Bali, and which stretches east to the border with East Timor. A third team is based in Banten province, west Java, and two more teams are based in Bali. The squads use helicopters to move quickly from town to town as they piece together elements of the bombers' trail. In the east Java town of Jember yesterday, local police said the region was on high alert for anyone on terrorist watchlists. In Bali, public access to the areas around the three bomb sites - two cafes in the upmarket dining area of Jimbaran Bay, south of Kuta, and Raja's restaurant in Kuta Square - is being restored, with police lines now drawn back to cover just the actual crime scenes. Investigation spokesman Brigadier General Soenarko dismissed reports yesterday that a man had been arrested in west Java on Wednesday based on his resemblance to fugitive terror mastermind Azahari Husin. Azahari, a Malaysian scientist who studied in Australia, and his associate Noordin Top, are being sought for their roles in the 2002 Bali bombings as well as in the latest atrocity. "I can tell you a man was arrested by immigration police in Sukabumi, west Java, but we can state there is as yet no connection to this case," General Soenarko said. "His name was Masnin Hasin, a Malaysian who after interrogation was found to have passports issued by Singapore and Malaysia as well as many ID cards. "He is still in custody in West Java." In Denpasar, Bali, plainclothes police have been circulating among Muslim communities to ask local people whether they recognised the three suicide bombers as depicted in the police photographs. One policeman who has been engaged in that task for the past two days said yesterday he was sent to Nyoman Cafe on the night of the explosion, where he retrieved Gareng's severed head from the beachfront wreckage. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Get fast access to your favorite Yahoo! Groups. Make Yahoo! your home page http://us.click.yahoo.com/dpRU5A/wUILAA/yQLSAA/uTGrlB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Post message: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe : [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe : [EMAIL PROTECTED] List owner : [EMAIL PROTECTED] Homepage : http://proletar.8m.com/ Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/proletar/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
