Bali bombings 'intricately planned'

A detailed plan apparently written by a Malaysian terror chief reveals how intricately last year’s restaurant bombings in Bali were planned, according to a US report.

The New York Times said the 34-page document, called “The Bali Project” was found on the computer of Azahari Husin, an engineer with a doctorate from Reading University who died in a shootout with police in November.

Husin, who was also linked to the 2002 Bali bombings which killed 202 people, including 26 Britons, determined that the devices for October’s attack should be small and carried in backpacks, and that the bombers should dress like tourists.

Three men walked into separate restaurants and blew themselves up, killing 20 innocent people.

The newspaper described the document as a “playbook for a suicide bombing” which even included a minute-by-minute choreography of the attackers’ final hours.

The plan reportedly details how the bombers conducted a thorough advance survey of the area, looking at possible targets including McDonald’s, Pizza Hut, Burger King and KFC restaurants, as well as theatres, a golf course, tattoo parlours, art galleries and souvenir stalls.

They looked at what sort of bags tourists carried, and decided not to use taxis to get to their destinations because drivers might help with the backpacks and become suspicious of their weight.

Deciding that nightclubs were no good as targets because having the bags there might look odd, they concluded that restaurants were the best choice.

The author of the report, who police believe is Husin, wrote that the people to be targeted were “foreign tourists from America and its allies“, which included all NATO countries as well as Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, Japan, Thailand and the Philippines.

Only five of the 20 killed were foreigners – four Australians and a Japanese. The remaining 15 were Indonesians.