 Senior US officials have told The Weekend Australian that military prosecutors lack the evidence to charge the Indonesian terror suspect over the bombings of the Sari Club and Paddy's Bar on October 12, 2002. The news will come as a blow to relatives of those who perished in the deadliest terrorist attacks ever perpetrated against Australians. It follows the execution in Indonesia last year of the three bombers, Imam Samudra and brothers Amrozi and Mukhlas. While authorities are confident they can tie Hambali to other terrorist attacks across the archipelago - ensuring he is almost certain to remain in custody - US officials say it is unlikely the 45-year-old will be charged over his role in the Bali bombings. A senior US official close to the investigation said the problem boiled down to a lack of admissible evidence. "As it stands now, the case against Hambali on Bali is weak," he said. "But the investigation has not stopped. It is ongoing." Despite the lack of evidence, there is a near universal consensus among experts, intelligence analysts and government officials that Hambali was involved in the twin blasts in the Kuta tourist strip. Read more here ... Source: The Australian
THIRTY young, glassy-eyed men, all grimly focused, jog at pace two abreast, military-style, through the narrow streets of Solo in central Java. Whether they are a new crop of Muslim terrorists is impossible to say, but the al-Mukmin school they attend has produced a long list of some of the most sinister names known to Australia and Southeast Asia. Out of this school came the 2002 Bali bombers Mukhlas, Amrozi and Samudra, and the 2005 Bali suicide bombers. Also from there was bomb-maker Fathur Rahman al-Ghozi, who wreaked terror in Indonesia, Singapore and The Philippines, and Mubarok, who drove a truck into the Australian embassy in Jakarta in 2004. Nur Said, aka Nur Hasbi, also studied here. It is widely believed he was one of two bombers in Friday's attack on Jakarta's J.W. Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotels. If it was Nur Said, he -- like the rest of the alumni -- was taught the fundamentals of jihad terror at this school by its co-founder and the spiritual leader of Jemaah Islamiah, Abu Bakar Bashir, in the mid-1990s. In this, Bashir was ably assisted by Southeast Asia's most wanted man, Noordin Top, who recruited terrorists from this backstreet Islamic boarding school. Top is believed to have given Friday's bombers their final instructions. It is remarkable this school survives, given that its history is so written in blood. Guards at the school, in the suburb of Ngruki, were reluctant to let The Australian inside its gates. We were able to observe the show of force they gave as they ran through the streets in the midday heat, chanting "Allahu Akbar" -- God is great -- in an intimidating statement of force. The graphic on the students' shirts depicts a rifle with a bayonet and a yellow flag. It may not be coincidence that in Indonesia, a yellow flag is used to indicate that someone has passed away. The word sapala on the T-shirts is an acronym that roughly translates as "Islamic School Nature Lovers", and the word kamufisa refers to a mujaheddin cadre. Indonesian police arrived at the school on Monday to investigate Nur Said's associations and the school. After initial denials he had been a student there, the school's deputy director, Ustadz Wahyudin, yesterday reportedly confirmed he had been in Bashir's classes of '94 and '95. Bashir lives at the school but was yesterday on a preaching tour in east Java. Alexander Downer, who as foreign minister confronted a series of terror events, told The Australian: "What can you do with someone who has Abu Bakar Bashir as their earthly hero and would like to get the hell out of this world and into paradise? "People still don't understand how these people schooled in the madrassas see great virtue in martyrdom. The worst that can happen to them is that they feel a bit of pain, or none at all. They're excited about blasting themselves into paradise. It's very hard to counter that." Mr Downer said Australian aid programs aimed at modernising the schools and teaching moderation were 10-15 years away from showing a beneficial effect. Source: The Australian
A NEATLY groomed business type in collared shirt and jacket, crew-cut and trimmed beard. A bespectacled nerd in metal-rimmed glasses with long sideburns and oiled hair. An anonymous jihadist in full-face balaclava spewing vitriol against the "enemies of Islam".
These are among the many guises of Noordin Mohammed Top, the elusive serial bomber, most wanted man in Asia and key suspect in last week's hotel bombings in Jakarta. The one-time accountant from Johor in southern Malaysia has emerged in recent years as the operational leader behind a series of bombings, culminating in last Friday's suicide attacks on the J.W. Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotels. Top is known not only as a master of disguise and skilled escape artist who has eluded an Indonesian police dragnet for seven years. He is also a logistical and technical mastermind and, even more troubling, a charismatic recruiter of young would-be martyrs who is known to have volunteers in the wings waiting to set off more bombs. He also harbours a visceral hatred of Australia, which he has pinpointed repeatedly in his diatribes and is bound to target again in future attacks unless he is captured or killed. So who is the ruthless technocrat who has defied the leadership of his organisation, Jemaah Islamiah, to carry on the murderous campaign for an Indonesian Islamic state? In the 1990s Top was a science graduate studying for his masters at the University of Technology Malaysia in Johore, southern Malaysia, a hotbed of Muslim student radicalism and hub of the Islamist movement. He joined a religious study group that met at the home of a UTM academic and fellow Malaysian, Wan Min bin Wan Mat, who was a lecturer in project management in the faculty of science and engineering. A regular speaker at these sessions was a fiery young Islamic teacher and veteran of the Afghan jihad named Ali Ghufron, later known by his nom de guerre Mukhlas as the controller of the 2002 Bali bombings. At the time, Mukhlas was head of a new school set up by JI's exiled leaders in a jungle clearing in Johore, Luqmanul Hakim, to groom a new generation of jihadists to fight for a pan-Asian Islamic state. The bookish science student Top was enthralled by the tales of holy war. "We were mesmerised by the JI leadership and its struggle," Wan Min said years later after renouncing JI. "When you come into such a group, you cannot think rationally. We were convinced our struggle was correct." After completing his studies Top was employed to teach maths and geology at the JI school, and was later promoted to the role of director. He and his UTM colleagues, who also included mathematics professor Azahari Husin, became the intellectual and administrative brains trust of JI, which was controlled at the time from Malaysia. After swearing allegiance to JI's leader in 1998, Top was promoted to lead its Malaysian branch and administrative headquarters, known as Mantiqi 1. He is not known to have trained or fought in Afghanistan but underwent military training at JI's Camp Hudaibiyah in Mindinao in the southern Philippines. In late 2001, after Singaporean police discovered a JI plot to bomb Western embassies in Singapore, Top and his colleagues fled to Bangkok, where they set up a new command centre under the leadership of the group's operations chief, Hambali. Top and his fellow fugitives referred to themselves as the muhajarin (migrants), a term used by the original followers of the prophet Mohammed who fled with him from Mecca into exile in Medina to evade their enemies and build their Islamic state. It was during their Bangkok exile that JI's first al-Qa'ida-backed attack on Western targets -- the 2002 Bali bombings -- was conceived. It was entrusted to the men from UTM, Top and Azahari, who "received orders from Hambali to prepare a proposal for an operation", according to Wan Min. Read more here,,, Source: The Australian
INDONESIA will continue to live with the threat of terror attacks unless its government cracks down on the militant Islamic schools and religious zealots who espouse worldwide jihad. Last Friday's hotel bombings in Jakarta have focused attention yet again on a network of radical Islamic boarding schools across Indonesia that continues to espouse the cause of violent jihad and churn out eager young zealots willing to die in its name.
Four days after the bombings, investigators have linked them to two Islamic schools that are well known to the Indonesian authorities but have neither been shut down nor had their activities or teachings curtailed. The first of these is the now notorious Al Mukmin pesantren (boarding house) at Ngruki in Solo, Central Java, where the Marriott suicide bomber is reported to have been schooled. The second is a smaller school at Cilacap in Central Java, where a bomb identical to the hotel bombs used in Jakarta was found in July, and which is believed to have provided shelter to suspected mastermind Noordin Top. A Muslim leader in Jakarta yesterday identified the man who detonated a backpack and case full of explosives inside the Marriott restaurant as Nur Hasbi, who is believed to have graduated from the Ngruki school in 1995. Thus the school continues to live up to its reputation as "a crucible for the formation of cadres of mujahidin", and its mission, "to nurture zeal for jihad so that love for jihad and martyrdom grow in the soul of the mujahidin", in the words of its co-founder, Jemaah Islamiah leader, Abu Bakar Bashir. Nur Hasbi was no doubt inspired by his reported classmate, Asmar Latin Sani, who carried out the previous attack on the Marriott in 2003, after which his severed head was found on the fifth floor of the smashed hotel. The connection is no coincidence. The Ngruki school and others linked to JI -- chiefly the Darul Syahadah ("house of martyrs") and Al Muttaqin schools, both in Central Java -- have produced no less than dozens of young recruits linked to a string of terrorist attacks, starting with the first Bali bombings in 2002.
"The most common link between participants in the terrorist movement in Indonesia in the past 10 years has been attendance at those schools," says Ken Ward, a former senior analyst with the Office of National Assessments, who has worked on in a project tracing terrorist networks in Southeast Asia, in conjunction with the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York. Ward says the Indonesian government has been slow to take on the militant schools because it doesn't actually know what they teach, fears a political backlash, and seems unable to decide what constitutes radical Islam. "I think it's a big problem with confronting the JI ideology. A lot of Indonesians can't agree on what's undesirable about it, except that they reject bombing." As a result, despite a vigorous program to "de-radicalise" JI detainees, the origins of radicalisation -- within the school system -- are seemingly ignored. "It's almost as though the Indonesians are willing to allow people to acquire radical Islamic beliefs and then later try to de-radicalise them, rather than try to de-radicalise the education system." I visited the Ngruki school in 2002 after the Bali bombings and again last year. In 2002 the principal had a portrait of Osama bin Laden on his door, and an ABC TV crew filmed a classroom in which childish drawings of bombs and sticks of dynamite were scrawled on a blackboard. At a mosque nearby we witnessed the now famous sermon by Abu Bakar Bashir: "Between you and us there will forever be a ravine of hate and we will be enemies until you follow Allah's law." By 2008 little had changed, except that the school has expanded over the years. Read more here: Source: The Australian
 Soldiers threw a cordon around Jakarta's Ritz-Carlton hotel,
one of two hotels struck by suicide bombers.Tom Allard and Lindsay Murdoch, Jakarta July 19, 2009 SOUTH-EAST Asia's most wanted man, militant Islamist Noordin Mohammed Top, is behind the twin bombings of the JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotels in Jakarta, according to Indonesian officials, who have launched a manhunt for the terrorist wanted over a string of attacks since he plotted the first Bali bombings. As the investigation intensified yesterday, the families of two Australians killed in Friday's blasts — Nathan Verity and Craig Senger — grieved, with Mr Verity's wife Vanessa and father arriving in Jakarta to identify his body and bring it home. A third Australian, Garth McEvoy, has been identified as being at the epicentre of the blast in the Marriott. Australian authorities are yet to officially confirm his death, but Indonesia's Health Ministry has listed him among the fatalities. Police are trying to identify some of the victims from the attack, which killed nine, including at least four foreigners. All three Australians had been attending a business breakfast at the Marriott hotel in a private room adjacent to where the bomb went off. Mr Verity ran a recruitment firm, Mr McEvoy was a lawyer for the construction services company Thiess, while Mr Senger was a senior trade official working at the Australian embassy. A source within CastleAsia, a Jakarta-based consultancy that organised the breakfast, said it was likely terrorists had targeted the high-profile gathering to send a message to the foreign business community. The senior anti-terrorism official at Indonesia's ministry for political, legal and security affairs, Ansyaad Mbai, said it was clear from the way the attacks were carried out that Top was involved. An undetonated bomb and examination of the bomb site have confirmed that the explosives were similar to those previously used by Top. Mr Mbai noted that the attackers had changed their tactics to circumvent security arrangements outside the hotels. "Before, the suicide bombers attacked from outside … (now) they have penetrated this increased security system and reached the heart of the target," he said. The undetonated bomb discovered in room 1808 of the Marriott hotel had been installed inside a hollowed-out laptop computer. Indonesia's Detik news yesterday reported that the man who brought the explosives into the hotel had set off the building's metal detectors but was waved through after assuring security personnel that it was his computer that had triggered the alarm. Meanwhile, Jakarta's residents remained defiant in the aftermath of the attacks. Outside the Ritz-Carlton hotel a sign reading "We are not afraid, they only make us stronger" was surrounded by flowers and wreaths. Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith arrived in Jakarta yesterday with a team of security officials, saying Australia would provide "any assistance" required. Australian Federal Police are helping Indonesian officers with crime scene and ballistic analysis, and guidance on intelligence matters. Source: The Age
 Stephen Fitzpatrick, Tenggulun, East Java | November 11, 2008
THE delighted family and spiritual adviser of executed Bali bombers Amrozi and Mukhlas have hailed their martyrdom, claiming the brothers died with smiles on their faces and that there will be 1001 jihadis to take their place.
Abdul Rohim, son of Muslim preacher Abu Bakar Bashir who set the bombers on their path of mass murder, said he had examined the pair's faces after they were shot by firing squads early on Sunday.
"They were smiling, and the perfume of the bodies was not from the soap used to clean them; it was an extraordinary perfume," Mr Rohim told The Australian.
Mr Rohim warned that the executions could now unleash 1001 jihadis.
"The Government thinks that by executing them it can stop the jihad," Mr Rohim said.
"But the point is that this will not extinguish the jihad.
"It's not possible to extinguish the light of Allah. The jihad will always continue."
The boasts came as Foreign Minister Stephen Smith said Australia continued to receive credible threats of attacks after Sunday's execution of the terrorists.
"Regrettably, we continue to receive credible information that Bali remains an attractive target for terrorist activity," Mr Smith told parliament.
However, the Foreign Minister said there had been no change to the threat level cited in Australian Government travel advice.
It remained at the second-highest level - "reconsider your need to travel" - the level it has been pegged at since the attack on October 12, 2002, in which 202 people, 88 of them Australians, were killed.
The statement came as recently installed Bali Governor I Made Mangku Pastika - the former local police chief who headed the investigation into the terrorist atrocity - warned against violent retaliation for the executions.
Indonesian authorities also revealed they continued to be at a high level of alert after several bomb threats over the past week, including on Australia's Jakarta embassy.
"I hope the people will regard (the executions) as a normal thing, and not react excessively," Mr Pastika said.
He attempted to pour cold water on the claims of holiness being made by the families of Imam Samudra and the bin Nurhasyim brothers.
Hundreds of supporters briefly clashed with police as the bodies of Mukhlas and Amrozi - the latter dubbed the "smiling assassin" for his courtroom antics - arrived by helicopter at their village of Tenggulun, in east Java, on Sunday.
Bashir, who responded to the two brothers' final wishes by praying over their bodies shortly before they were interred had yesterday morning resumed his schedule of preaching jihad in Muslim boarding schools across Indonesia.
Bashir, the co-founder of Jemaah Islamiah, was jailed on a conspiracy charge related to the bombings before being released in 2006.
Female members of the family visited the brothers' grave site to tidy up and pray, having been denied access to the area during Sunday's burial ceremony according to strict Muslim funeral rules. Yasyrifah binti Nurhasyim, the sister aged in between Amrozi - who was 46, and Mukhlas, who was 48 - was praying at the graves with her daughter, Aulia Sahida.
A defiant Yasyrifah said the family was proud of her brothers' "achievement". "We're relieved, because they've become martyrs," she said.
She added that the graves, which are set apart from the main cemetery in Tenggulun village, would be kept simple.
"A fence will be put around the graves," she said. "But no sort of shrine will be built. We're worried it could become an altar (for ancestor worship)."
Muslim leaders in Java often struggle with trying to keep the faithful from following the older syncretic aspects of the religion that are holdovers from a pre-Islamic past in Indonesia - such as ancestor worship.
Family and hardline followers such as Abdul Rohim were busy yesterday offering interpretations of the arrival of three large birds of prey over Tenggulun village on Sunday, moments before the bodies of Amrozi and Mukhlas arrived. The birds wheeled high in the air for several minutes and then separated, two flying in one direction and the third flying separately in another.
Followers are interpreting this as a sign that the brothers and their co-conspirator, Imam Samudra, were taken straight to heaven after their deaths. Source: The Australian
Sanna Trad | November 10, 2008
THE majority of Muslim leaders across Australia have supported the executions of the Bali bombers over the weekend.
Influential Sydney imam Abdul Salam Mohammed Zoud said his only criticism of the executions was they did not happen sooner. "They did the crime and they had to be punished.
"They killed 200 innocent people over nothing - executing them was the right thing to do," he said.
"If you don't agree with a government's policy or people's ideology you talk to them about it - you do not kill innocent people. This should have been done as soon as they were found guilty. They should not have been given time to lodge appeals; their crime was just against humanity." Sheik Zoud said the death penalty was the only adequate punishment for the bombers under Islamic law.
"It doesn't matter what religion they claimed to follow; as a Muslim and as an Australian I support this punishment," he said.
Sydney's Indonesian Community Council head Amin Hady said many in the community were relieved the bombers had finally been executed.
"Most of the community have been waiting for this to happen for a long time and are very relieved that it's finally over," Imam Hady said. "In Islamic teaching ... they say if you kill one innocent person it is as if you have killed all of humanity ... this was the only punishment that could be handed out." However, not all Muslim community leaders agreed with the executions. The former chairman of John Howard's Muslim community reference group, Ameer Ali, said members of the Australian Government were hypocrites for not protesting against the execution.
"What have we achieved by executing these people?" Dr Ali said.
"We have just made it easierfor them to execute the Bali Nine. Australia should have taken the opportunity to try to put an end to this barbaric penalty known as capital punishment." Source: The Australian
 Outraged over the execution of mass murderers November 09, 2008
Grief and religious fervour boiled over into calls for revenge as two brothers executed for their role in the 2002 Bali attacks were prepared for burial amid tight security.
A crowd of about 500 supporters drove police off the road leading to the family home of 47-year-old Amrozi - dubbed the "smiling assassin" for his disturbing grin - and Mukhlas, 48, as their bodies arrived.
The men had been executed by firing squad along with fellow bomber Imam Samudra shortly after midnight on a prison island off southern Java, claiming to want to die as "martyrs'' and having shown no remorse for the attacks.
The crowd burst into tears and shouts of "Allahu Akbar!" (God is greater) at the sight of two black crows over the east Java village as the helicopter bearing the bodies landed in a nearby field.
"God is great, God is great! God is showing his greatness. I'm so happy,'' shouted a supporter who sobbed uncontrollably at the sight of the birds.
"This is God's grace. The mujahedeen (holy warriors) will fight on!" shouted someone else in the crowd, crying and holding his hands to the sky in religious awe.
"Of course they are martyrs. They fought hard in the name of Islam but they died. But dying doesn't mean they lost - they still won," said one supporter, refusing to give his name.
Packed into narrow streets outside the family home, the crowd thronged around ambulances bearing the bodies from the helicopter and jostled with heavily armed paramilitary police.
The bodies were eventually delivered to the local mosque for prayers ahead of the burials.
In the west Java town of Serang, Imam Samudra was buried quickly after similar scenes as his body was paraded through the streets shrouded in a black cloth bearing a Koranic inscription in Arabic.
Members of a radical group headed by hardline cleric Abu Bakar Bashir, who was jailed on a conspiracy charge related to the bombings before being released in 2006, pushed people aside to make way for the body.
"There'll probably be retaliation. What is clear is that no drop of Muslim blood is free. It has consequences," said Ganna, 26, who travelled 90 km from the capital Jakarta to show his support.
The bombers said they launched the attacks against packed nightclubs on the resort island of Bali - killing 202 people, mostly foreign tourists - to defend Islam from Western aggression and avenge US action in Afghanistan and Iraq.
They were members of the Jemaah Islamiyah regional terror group blamed for a series of attacks around the region, part of a "holy war" to create an Islamic caliphate spanning much of Southeast Asia.
Most Indonesians practise a moderate form of Islam, and head of the country's leading Islamic body, the Indonesian Council of Ulamas, said the bombers could not be considered "martyrs."
"Someone who killed others will not die as martyrs unless they waged a war in the name of religion. They were not fighting for religion," Umar Shihab was quoted as saying by the Detikcom news website.
Even as the bombers' radical supporters protested, others quietly agreed their "jihad'' was wrong.
"If there's a war fighting jihad is good for the religion but don't do it here in Indonesia. Bali isn't a battlefield," said Robi, 30, a neighbour of Samudra. Source: The Australian
 November 09, 2008
AUSTRALIA is to press for an international moratorium on capital punishment in the wake of the execution of the Bali bombers, the Federal Government said today.
Foreign Minister Stephen Smith said today he had nothing but contempt for the bombers, but Australia did not support the death penalty.
“Australia of course for a long period of time has generally opposed capital punishment,” he told ABC TV just hours after the executions.
“We urge countries who continue to apply capital punishment not to do so.”
Mr Smith said in the near future Australia would co-sponsor a resolution in the United Nations General Assembly calling for a moratorium on capital punishment.
He said there was a bipartisan opposition to capital punishment in Australia, at the state and federal levels.
But he said today was a sad day for Australia, and particularly for the victims' families.
“Our hearts go out to the families,” he said.
“It's just in my view a terrible reminder of a terrible, horrible event that occurred to family members.
“It's not a day that fills us with any joy or with any celebration.”
Mr Smith said the bombers' executions would bring closure to some of the victims' families.
“I have nothing but contempt for what the Bali bombers did and what they had to say when they were alive, and my view hasn't changed now,” he said.
He also reiterated his warning, issued yesterday, that Australians should reconsider travelling to Indonesia.
Many young school graduates – “schoolies” – might be considering travelling to Bali over the next six weeks, but they should think again.
“We are worried about the prospect of the supporters of the Bali bombers engaging in either demonstrations or reprisals,” he said.
“We continue to have credible information that terrorists may be planning attacks in Indonesia.”
He urged Australian tourists to avoid beaches, bars and malls in Indonesia.
Mr Smith said the Government was pleased with the cooperation it was receiving from Indonesian authorities on counter-terrorism. The two governments were continuing to work together, he said.
Australia rejected all forms of extremism and was pushing for greater respect and regard for all religious faiths, he said. Source: The Australian
 November 09, 2008
THREE Bali bombers have been executed on an Indonesian island for their lead roles in the 2002 nightclub bombings that killed 202 people, including 88 Australians.
The family of Mukhlas and his younger brother Amrozi said the bombers had been executed along with Imam Samudra just after midnight local time (4am AEDT) on Nusakambangan Island, in Central Java, where they had been jailed.
“Our family has received news of the execution ... May our brothers, God willing, be invited by green birds to heaven now,” Mohammad Chozin, a brother of Mukhlas and Amrozi, said in their home village of Tenggulun.
“We're now handling the preparations to bring the bodies back, which may take two hours,” he said outside an Islamic boarding school in the east Java village, as supporters shouted “Allahu Akbar” (God is greater).
Indonesia's Attorney General's Office later confirmed the executions had taken place.
“At 12.15am, the convicts ... were executed by shooting and followed up with an autopsy,” spokesman Jasman Pandjaitan said.
“They have been stated as dead. At this moment the bodies are being washed by the family.”
Attorney General Hendarman Supanji will hold a press conference in Jakarta at 11am local time (3pm AEDT).
The bombers were simultaneously shot through the heart by crack Indonesian troops assembled to carry out the task.
They were executed in an orchard some 6km from their prison on Nusakambangan Island, Indonesia's TV One reported.
A source at the prison said they shouted “Allahu Akbar” as they were escorted out of their isolation cells by paramilitary police shortly before their executions.
Australians expressed relief that the men were finally dead, six years after they brought carnage to Bali by sending suicide bombers to attack the Sari Club and nearby Paddy's Bar on October 12, 2002.
“... we've waited a very long time for this and this is our justice,” Sydney woman Maria Kotronakis, who lost two sisters and two cousins, told CNN, struggling at times to speak.
“Finally the moment has come ... we are over the moon.”
Survivor Peter Hughes, of Perth, who suffered horrific burns in the bombings, said the three militants had paid the highest price for mass murder, but their executions did not bring him any joy.
“These guys went to set about mass murder and paid the highest penalty,” he told CNN.
“It doesn't feel good but they did do the crime and they've paid for it.”
The bombers' bodies will soon be flown by helicopter to their home villages for burial within 24 hours, in accordance with Muslim custom.
In Tenggulun, sobbing mourners are converging on the home of Amrozi and Mukhlas' mother.
Hardline cleric Abu Bakar Bashir – the co-founder of Jemaah Islamiah, the group blamed for the Bali bombings – praised the bombers as “holy warriors” during a visit to the village on Saturday.
Security forces are on high alert across the mainly Muslim country, after the bombers urged supporters to carry out revenge attacks if their executions went ahead.
Australian authorities have advised Australians to reconsider the need to travel to Indonesia.
The 2002 Bali attacks were the bloodiest in a sustained period of al-Qaeda-inspired jihadist violence in the world's most populous Muslim country. Source: The Australian
By Marion Carroll in Denpasar | November 08, 2008
THE younger brother of Bali bombers Amrozi and Mukhlas has been ordered to wait in a room at Nusakambangan prison to receive his dead brothers bodies within hours, online news site detik.com has reported.
Ali Fauzi has been denied a final visit with the Islamic militants ahead of their executions at the prison island off Central Java, lawyer Mahendradatta said.
A lawyer for the bombers, Achmad Michdan, told media today it was a "possibility" his clients would be executed Saturday night or early Sunday morning.
Prosecutors said they may make an announcement about the executions later Saturday night, but did not elaborate.
With the executions of Amrozi, Mukhlas and Imam Samudra imminent, authorities ordered Fauzi to wait in a room at their island prison to receive their bodies and make sure they were being handled in accordance with Islamic sharia law, Mahendradatta said.
"He (Fauzi) was told to wait in a room to see the bodies, to make sure the process complies with Islamic sharia law," Mahendradatta was quoted as saying by detik.com.
"Why is the family only allowed to see the dead bodies? Once again, they are not to see them in living condition. So it is not a family meeting as meant within the law."
Mahendradatta speculated that Fauzi was denied permission to see his brothers alive because of fears he may find that they had been mistreated.
"(Possibly) because they are worried there is something Amrozi and his friends may say that will cause their operation (executions) to be aborted. For instance if Amrozi is tortured or executed beforehand," he said.
Amid fears that the trio's supporters would seek to avenge their executions, police were reportedly worried that the bombers would order Fauzi to launch an attack if they allowed a final visit.
"Who can guarantee if he (Amrozi) won't give a message to the family to fight, we are afraid there will be mass radicalisation," a police source told local newspaper Radar Banyumas.
Protests by Islamic militants against the executions have been slowly building as the execution process has dragged on.
The Australian government today warned of reprisal attacks, with Foreign Minister Stephen Smith saying the government was receiving new "credible evidence" of the threat of terrorist attacks.
Among the warnings he singled out in a travel advisory were that "the executions could prompt a strong reaction from their supporters such as demonstrations, acts of violence and reprisal attacks".
Tourists should be especially careful around beaches, bars, malls and other venues associated with tourists, the advice says.
However, Mr Smith said the travel advice to Indonesia had not changed from the second highest level of "reconsider your need to travel".
Some 1500 anti-riot police have been deployed to Amrozi and Mukhlas' home town of Lamongan, East Java, in anticipation of possible unrest following the executions, detik.com reported. Source: The Australian
Tom Allard in Tenggulun, East Java
November 8, 2008
FAMILY and supporters are planning an elaborate "celebration" for Amrozi and Mukhlas after their deaths, including the slaughter of a goat for a feast and a procession of their bodies through their home village of Tenggulun.
A prosecutor yesterday arrived in the small village to convey the last wishes of the Bali bombers to their families and to say their executions were imminent.
The brothers Amrozi and Mukhlas and their co-conspirator, Imam Samudra, are to be executed for their role in murdering 202 people, including 88 Australians, in Bali in 2002.
It was their wish that their bodies be wrapped in the traditional Muslim cloth and buried in Tenggulun next to their father, Nurhasyim, said their older brother, Chozin, after meeting the prosecutor, Irnensif.
More details of the funeral arrangements were revealed by another brother, Ali Fauzi, and Said Sungkar, who is on a committee overseeing the funeral.
Sungkar, the younger brother of Abdullah Sungkar, who co-founded the terrorist group Jemaah Islamiah, said the funeral was an occasion "to celebrate the victory of Islam", and 500 of his supporters would act as an honour guard for the bodies.
"I'm positive about the execution of Amrozi and friends because they have done jihad in God's way," Sungkar said. "The TNI [Indonesian military] should have learnt from them how to make bombs."
Ali Fauzi said that his older brothers wanted their bodies to be taken first to their family home before being moved to the nearby mosque. After that, they will be carried several hundred metres to an Islamic school, for further prayers. They will then be taken to one of two village graveyards to be buried next to their father.
Family members, including the wives of the bombers, have gathered in the village. Both Amrozi and Mukhlas have two wives.
Ali Fauzi said the wives asked Irnensif to allow them to see their husbands before they die and the prosecutor agreed to pass on the request and try to facilitate a visit. Source: Sydney Morning Herald
From correspondents in Tenggulun, Indonesia | November 07, 2008
THE families of the three Bali bombers on death row have been told to "get ready" for the executions.
Prosecutors and police visited the family of brothers Amrozi, 47, and Mukhlas, 48, in the east Java village of Tenggulun and warned them to prepare for bad news.
"We were just here to tell the family to get ready for when the executions take place," chief district prosecutor Irnensis said after speaking to the family for about 30 minutes.
He made no further comment and did not specify when the three bombers - Amrozi, Mukhlas and Imam Samudra, 38 - would be executed by firing squad.
Indonesian officials have said only that the executions will take place in "early November".
The bombers were sentenced in 2003 for the attack which killed 202 people, including 88 Australians. Source: The Australian
From correspondents in Cilacap, Indonesia | November 07, 2008
THREE condemned Bali bombers could be allowed out of their isolation cells for Friday prayers today after yet another opportunity for their executions passed.
A security build-up on the bombers' prison island in Central Java, and the rallying of supporters in the men's home towns and in Jakarta, had fuelled speculation that the men might have been executed overnight.
And yesterday the Detikcom news website said the bombers would be shot at 3am local time today (7am AEDT), but the hour passed without word from authorities.
The bombers have traditionally been allowed out of their cells for Friday prayers and may be afforded that opportunity again today.
It has been reported that Mukhlas, his younger brother Amrozi, and Imam Samudra have undergone final health checks in preparation for their executions.
And yesterday, all workers not directly employed at the bombers' prison on Nusakambangan Island were ordered to leave.
About 100 chanting militants descended on the offices of the national human rights body as the bombers' lawyers met officials inside to demand access for the families. The radicals condemned the executions and praised the bombers as "holy warriors". They carried banners pledging to follow the bombers' path of jihad or "holy war" and warning that "hell" awaits the executioners.
A total of 202 people, including 88 Australians, died in the bombings Mukhlas, Amrozi and Samudra helped carry out.
The Indonesian government has said only that the bombers will be put to death by firing squad in "early November". Terrorism experts have warned that the delay risks undermining the Indonesian government's credibility in the fight against terrorism.
"This slow execution is a sign the government is not being strict in combating terrorism and law enforcement in Indonesia," former Indonesian National Human Rights commissioner Sholahuddin Wahid said.
"If this execution is postponed again, the government's credibility will decrease."
Terrorism expert Rohan Gunaratna, of Singapore's International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research, agreed.
"The government should be strong (and) carry out the executions. Not to do so would be a huge mistake ... it would be a big victory for the terrorists."
As time drags on, the security situation appears to be worsening.
In the past few days, there have been death threats against President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono as well as bomb threats against the Australian and US embassies in Jakarta.
The delay has also allowed dozens of religious extremists to gather in Tenggulun, the east Java village that was home to Amrozi and Mukhlas.
The bombers' supporters relished in the media attention yesterday, repeating their jihadist message to journalists. Around 20 radicals from a group headed by radical preacher Abu Bakar Bashir, who is linked to the Jemaah Islamiah group blamed for the Bali attacks, angrily denounced the executions and exhorted Muslims to "martyrdom".
Despite the lengthy preparations, the families have not received permission to pay a final visit to the bombers.
Rights body chairman Ifdhal Kasim said the prisoners had a right to meet their families before they faced the firing squad.
"A prisoner awaiting execution must be given a chance to meet their families," he said after meeting the defence lawyers, promising to take up the matter with prosecutors.
The bombers have said they want to die to become "martyrs" for their dream of creating an Islamic utopia across Southeast Asia. Source:The Australian
November 06, 2008
JAKARTA: Islamic extremists have rallied in the Indonesian capital against the imminent execution of three Bali bombers, as defence lawyers demanded the families be allowed a final visit.
Chanting “Allahu Akbar” (God is greater), about 100 militants descended on the offices of the national human rights body as the bombers' lawyers met officials inside to demand access for the families.
The radicals condemned the executions, believed to be hours or days away, and praised bombers Amrozi, 47, his brother Mukhlas, 48, and Imam Samudra, 38, as “holy warriors”.
They carried banners pledging to follow the bombers' path of jihad or “holy war” and warning that “hell” awaited the executioners.
As heavy rain hit the prison island of Nusakambangan, Central Java, overnight, Indonesian media reported that the trio will be executed imminently near a disused prison at Nirbaya hill.
Rubber and coconut farmers who usually frequent the site have been told to stay away.
Television station TV One showed footage of three wooden posts erected at the jungle site, to which the three men will be secured and simultaneously shot by separate firing squads.
Defence lawyer Mahendradatta urged the human rights body, Komnas Ham, to back the families' demand for visiting rights.
Komnas Ham chairman Ifdhal Kasim said the prisoners had a right to meet their families before they faced the firing squad.
Meanwhile the families wrote to President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono pleading for a delay in the executions, defence lawyer Fahmi Bachmid said.
He said however that the letter was not a request for clemency. The bombers have said they want to die to become “martyrs” for their dream of creating an Islamic utopia across Southeast Asia.
The bombings on the resort island of Bali in 2002 killed 202 people, including 88 Australians.
The government has said the condemned men will be executed by firing squad in “early November” after they exhausted the appeals process.
Source: The Australian
 Paul Maley | November 05, 2008
A PROMISE by both presidential candidates to shut Guantanamo Bay will not stop alleged Bali bomber Hambali from facing trial, with prosecutors saying they are on track to charge the terror suspect by year's end.
The chief prosecutor of the US Military Commissions, Colonel Larry Morris, said the election could have some bearing on the future of the controversial terror jail, but he remained confident Hambali would be dealt with.
"I am not concerned he won't face justice," Colonel Morris told The Australian. "I am confident that he will face justice. But I only speak for the commission process -- I don't speak for the Government and I don't speak for the new administration."
Colonel Morris's assurances came as authorities in Indonesia put the final touches on plans to execute Amrozi, Ali Ghufron and Imam Samudra, who were convicted in 2003 of carrying out the Bali bombings, which killed 202 people including 88 Australians.
Colonel Morris said the US authorities were watching developments in Indonesia closely, but the execution of the bombers would not affect the preparations of prosecutors in the US.
Colonel Morris said a new US president might seek to draw a distinction between shutting down the Guantanamo prison and shutting down the military commission system by which the detainees are tried.
Such a distinction could be politically awkward for campaign favourite Barack Obama, who voted against the Military Commission Act, which redesigned the military tribunals following a US Supreme Court ruling that they were illegal.
It could also be awkward for Kevin Rudd, who strongly opposed the military commissions when in Opposition. Mr Rudd described them last year as a "travesty of justice" and called on the US to repatriate Australian David Hicks, the first person convicted under the new system, or try him in a civilian court.
The Prime Minister said yesterday he stood by those remarks.
"The Government stands by our long-held position supporting the closure of Guantanamo Bay as soon as is practicable," a spokesman for Mr Rudd said. "The closure is a complex issue, including satisfying legitimate security concerns of the US as well as of its friends and allies."
Hambali was captured in Thailand in 2003. In 2006, it was announced he had been moved to Guantanamo Bay, where he awaits trial with 13 other detainees, including alleged 9/11 plotter Khalid Shaikh Mohammed.
Colonel Morris declined to give details on what charges Hambali could face.
"All I can say now is violations of the laws of war," he said.
"We're in the final analysis of (the charges), but that's as much as I can say without contradicting myself at some later time." Source: The Australian
November 04, 2008
THE US and Australian embassies in Indonesia received bomb threats amid a security crackdown ahead of the imminent execution of three Islamists convicted over the Bali bombings, police said.
A US embassy spokesman confirmed that a threat had been received and was being taken seriously.
"We are working closely with the Indonesian police,'' he said.
National police spokesman Abubakar Nataprawira said the threat was received through a telephone text message to police.
"We're investigating this to find out who sent the threat," he said.
He said it was being taken seriously although a similar threat against a shopping mall in Jakarta yesterday had proved to be a hoax.
Initial searches of the embassy compounds failed to find any bombs, the Detikcom news website reported, quoting police.
It said the text message read: "I will pull the trigger (of the bomb) if Amrozi and his friends are executed," referring to the Bali bombers.
Security at the US and Australian embassies has been boosted amid fears of reprisal attacks after the execution.
Amrozi, 47, his brother Mukhlas, 48, and Imam Samudra, 38, are facing execution any day over the bombings of packed tourist nightspots which killed 202 people six years ago.
Security has been tightened across the mainly Muslim archipelago due to concerns about revenge attacks from Islamist fanatics and the Jemaah Islamiyah regional terror network, which was allegedly behind the Bali carnage.
The Australian embassy spokeswoman was not available to comment. Source: The Australian
Stephen Fitzpatrick, Jakarta correspondent | November 03, 2008
THE Bali bombers have won a small victory in their attempts to delay their impending executions, with Denpasar District Court accepting an application to have the Supreme Court reconsider their death sentences.
However the reprieve could be short lived, with the higher court already adamant it has no further interest in the matter.
Despite incessant rumours of the impending executions of Amrozi bin Nurhasyim, Ali Ghufron alias Mukhlas and Abdul Azis alias Imam Samudra, delay after delay has hit the process.
Family members of all three men are waiting at the southern central Java port town of Cilacap for permission to visit the trio on death row.
However that permission had still not been given by midday, and the visitors and the men's lawyers said they would return home if it was still not given by the end of the afternoon.
Tomorrow is thought unlikely to be an appropriate execution date, with a major regional election being carried out for the east Java governor's position.
Amrozi and Mukhlas are both from the small village of Tenggulun in east Java, and village head Abu Sholeh says he will be extremely inconvenienced if he is expected to run the polling booth around the chaos of the men's funerals.
The village itself has filled with journalists, who are being received with open arms by residents. Abu Sholeh has even gone to some lengths to procure accommodation for visiting reporters.
Wednesday is also likely to be a difficult date for Indonesia's most notorious terrorists to be executed, given it will be the final day of a five-day visit by Prince Charles.
Amrozi's and Mukhlas's mother, Tariyem, is remaining largely behind closed doors in her modest home, emerging only briefly today to express her happiness that the executions appeared yet again to have been put off.
The major Jawa Pos newspaper even speculated this morning that, despite Attorney General Hendarman Supandji's pronouncement more than two weeks ago that he expected the executions to take place "in early November", the wait for the three men to die could be much longer. Source: The Australian
SOLO, Indonesia -- Over 100 members of a hardline Islamist group staged a protest in Indonesia yesterday against the planned execution of three militants on death row for the 2002 Bali bombings which killed 202 people. Indonesia has said it will execute the three men -- Imam Samudra, Amrozi and Mukhlas, also known as Ali Ghufron -- in early November, but has not specified a date. Indonesia's police spokesman said police across the sprawling archipelago have heightened security at key places and foreign embassies. Some analysts say there are fears of a hardline backlash because of the executions. Source: Reuters
The three Bali bombers are reportedly frustrated at delays to their executions even as new court action looms to prevent the sentence being carried out.
Imam Samudra and brothers Amrozi and Mukhlas will go before the firing squad imminently over their lead roles in the 2002 nightclub bombings.
According to a relative, Mukhlas has requested the execution be carried out without further delay.
Yet, even as authorities finalise arrangements and tighten security for the executions, lawyers are preparing to lodge another last-ditch court appeal for the bombing trio who killed 202 people, including 88 Australians.
Mukhlas brother-in-law Nasir Abas told the Indonesian newspaper Radar Banyumas that the bomber was annoyed by the wait to die.
'For me this decision is in accordance with what he (Mukhlas) wishes, which is to die as a martyr,' Abas said.
'He has asked for it to be done immediately.
'The delays of the executions is not Mukhlas' wish, but it is the wish of his lawyer, who according to me, is running a secular legal process which is hated by Mukhlas himself.'
An appeal seeking to prevent the executions was to be lodged on Monday, but it on what grounds is unclear.
On Sunday night, speculation intensified that the executions would happen soon after two helicopters which will transport the bombers bodies to their home villages for burial arrived on the prison island of Nusakambangan, near Cilacap, off the southern coast of Central Java.
About 100 members of the radical Islamic Defenders Front gathered to pray for the bombers at a mosque in Cilacap, and called on Indonesians around the country to do the same as the men faced their final hours.
However, all was quiet overnight at the jail.
The three Islamic militants are now expected to receive visits from relatives and lawyers on Monday morning.
Haji Agus Bambang Priyanto, a Muslim Balinese police officer who helped coordinate rescue efforts after the bombing and worked with local communities to prevent Muslim-Hindu tensions from flaring up in Bali, said he was losing patience.
'The Bali bombing victims have been waiting for a long time for justice and victims families and Balinese people are fed up,' he told AAP.
'Our chest is getting heavier after seeing Amrozi and his friends boasting on television.
'We have almost lost trust whether they will be executed or not.'
Heru Djatmiko, who was injured and lost his mother and nephew in the 2005 Bali bombings, also blamed on the Jemaah Islamiyah group behind the 2002 attack, said the government seemed scared of the political ramifications of carrying out the executions.
'The executions have been delayed a few times and a lot of people are sick and tired of waiting,' he said.
'My disappointment is that the government has not been doing anything to send the message that killing people for the sake of religion is not right.
'The government does not have the guts. I guess they are worried that it could create more political turmoil.'
For many, concerns that the bombers' supporters would seek to avenge their deaths underscored the need for the government to execute the men.
'The longer we wait, the more time their supporters have to get ready,' said Dewi Widiartha, who works at a hotel in Legian, Bali.
Experts have said a terrorist attack to avenge the bombers' executions was unlikely, but warned lower level unrest could break out when their bodies are returned to their villages Source: Sky News
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