Indonesia steps up hunt for blast masterminds

Investigators hunted today for the two suspected masterminds of suicide bombings on the Indonesian resort island of Bali, as Southeast Asian nations went on high alert to prevent a repeat of the weekend attacks.

Photographs were published in Indonesian newspapers of the bombers’ severed heads, giving hope that authorities would be able to quickly identify them.

The attacks on three crowded restaurants which killed at least 22 and injured 104 came as Southeast Asia geared up for its major tourist season, when millions of Europeans and other foreigners flock to its sunny beaches to escape their countries’ winter months.

Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra ordered plainclothes security officials to popular tourist spots, warning that the terrorists were “commuting and rotating around in the region.”

“They have close connections and links. Their linkages come from relatives, friends and they used to go the same schools,” said Thaksin, who usually downplays the terror threat to tourism – his country’s economic lifeblood.

The Philippines said it would intensify intelligence gathering, while Malaysia’s border security was tightened to prevent the two Malaysian fugitives believed to have masterminded the Bali attacks from returning home.

The suspects – Azahari bin Husin and Noordin Mohamed Top – are allegedly key figures in Jemaah Islamiyah, the regional al Qaida-linked terror group also blamed for the 2002 Bali attack that killed 202 people and thrust Indonesia into the front lines in the war on terror.

Saturday’s co-ordinated strikes showed how dangerous Jemaah Islamiyah remains despite a security crackdown that has seen hundreds of its alleged members arrested in the region in recent years.

But analysts say the group appears to have taken on a different form, using foot soldiers from other organisations to carry out attacks.

“I think we have to be careful not to assume that, just because Azahari and Noordin were involved, that it was a JI operation,” said Sidney Jones, an expert on Indonesia’s radical Islamic organisations.

Saturday’s bombers attacked two outdoor seafood restaurants on bustling Jimbaran beach and a three-storey noodle house in the tourist heart of the island within six minutes of each other on the busiest night of the week.

The men were wearing the explosives – packed with ball bearings and other shrapnel to maximise casualties – around their waists or in bags oer their shoulders. The blasts blew up their torsos but left their heads intact.

Police have released pictures of the heads – which appear to belong to young Indonesian men – to the media.

“It is our hope that people will recognise the faces and call us,” police Brigadier General Sunarko Dami Artanto told reporters as he released two hotline numbers. “It will hep us speed up the investigation.”

Officers have also been helped by videotapes obtained from tourists, including one clip showing a suspected bomber strolling past diners at one of the cafes moments before it was blown up.

Indonesian anti-terror official Major General Ansyaad Mbai said that investigators hoped to identify the bombers within days, adding that police think at least three other people were involved in the attacks and probably were still at large on Bali.

“If the past is any precedent, they have planned safe houses and are lying low, letting the first dragnet pass over head,” said Ken Conboy, a Jakarta-based security consultant and author of an upcoming book on terrorism in Southeast Asia.

Death tolls in the attacks have varied because the blasts dismembered the bodies, making them hard to count.

Sanglah, the main hospital treating the victims, posted its death toll of 29 on a bulletin board. A police spokesman, Major General Aryanto Budihardjo, told reporters in the capital that 22 had been killed, including the three bombers.

Fourteen Indonesians, two Australians and one Japanese man were among the dead.

Officials were trying to identify the nationalities of the other corpses.

The wounded included 49 Indonesians, 17 Australians, six Americans, six Koreans, and four Japanese.

A waiter killed in the attacks, 32-year-old Gusti Ketut Sudana, was cremated according to religious traditions on Bali, which is mostly Hindu unlike the rest of Indonesia. Villagers carried his corpse on a golden yellow float from his house to a crematorium.

“I grew up with him. I am devastated,” said Sudana’s brother, Gusti Mandalika. “But as Hindus we believe that everything is part of God’s plan.”