Four held over Embassy bombing

Indonesian police today announced the arrests of four suspects in the suicide bombing at the Australian Embassy – the first major breakthrough in an investigation into the deadly attack.

The four men were being held under anti-terrorist laws, but have not been charged over the attack in Jakarta that killed nine people and wounded nearly 180, police chief General Dai Bachtiar told reporters.

Police are questioning nine others over the attack, he said.

“The more arrests we make, the more information we get,” Bachtiar said, adding that he was “convinced” police would capture the alleged masterminds of the attack, Malaysian militants Azahari bin Husin and Noordin Mohamed Top.

Since the September 9 blast, police have questioned scores of people, but most have been released. Today’s arrests were the first made in connection with the attack.

The bombing has been blamed on Jemaah Islamiyah, a militant network affiliated with al-Qaida that was also implicated in the 2002 Bali bombings and an attack last year on the J W Marriott Hotel in Jakarta.

One of the four suspects, identified by his initials A.A.H., has confessed to transporting explosives used in the embassy blast to Jakarta from a safe house in western Java, Bachtiar said.

He was picked up after the bombing, Bachtiar said.

The other three were detained before the attack happened, but police have since determined that they were linked to it, he said.

Bachtiar gave no further details, saying that to do so could jeopardise the ongoing investigation.

In a related development on Saturday, a jailed cleric accused of heading Jemaah Islamiyah condemned the embassy attack, and reiterated that he had nothing to do with it.

“I personally condemn the bombing (and) I am deeply sorry and express my condolences to the victims,” Abu Bakar Bashir said, according to his lawyer Wirawan Adnan who visited the cleric in his cell in Cipinang Prison.

Abu Bakar Bashir has been in jail since 2002, when he was convicted for minor immigration infractions. Prosecutors say they now plan to charge him with heading Jemaah Islamiyah, and for the Marriott bombing last year that killed 12.

Bashir has repeatedly denied any involvement in terrorism and claims that Jakarta buckled under pressure from Washington to arrest him as part of a crackdown on Islamic activists in the world’s most populous Muslim nation.