TERRORISM AROUND THE GLOBE
2002
Simultaneous Attacks on Israeli Tourists in Kenya
Thursday, November 28, 2002
KIKAMBALA, Kenya — Simultaneous terrorist attacks on Israeli tourists left 11 people dead and another 80 wounded Thursday.
The killings came when a car careened toward a Kenya hotel and blew up. A homicide bomber also blew himself up in the reception area of the building.
At the same time, at least two missiles were fired at, but missed, an Israeli airplane.
A group calling itself the Army of Palestine has claimed responsibility for both attacks.
In a faxed statement, the previously unheard-of group said it had sent two groups of attackers to Kenya to "make the world hear once again the voice of Palestinian refugees, and to cast light on Zionist terrorism in the West Bank and Gaza."
A green all-terrain vehicle packed with explosives rammed through the gate of the Paradise Hotel in Kikambala, 15 miles north of Mombasa, at about 8 a.m., police said. One man jumped out and blew himself up inside, while the others detonated the vehicle out front, witnesses said. Left dead were two Israelis, six Kenyans and the three homicide bombers, said Kenyan police spokesman Jesse Mituki. The Israeli government said three Israelis were killed. Most of the Kenyans were traditional dancers who were performing for the tourists, said Abbas Gullet of the Kenyan
Red Cross.
Hotel Director Yehuda Sulami said two passengers were in the vehicle when it exploded.
Hotel staff also saw a light plane circling over the hotel at the time of the explosion, he said. Three packages, which staff said were bombs, were dropped from the plane, one landing in the hotel pool, one on the roof and one in the ocean.
Earlier, Kenyan police spokesman King'ori Mwangi had said the vehicle slipped in when the gate was opened to admit a busload of tourists, but he later said it crashed through the gate.
A fire gutted the hotel. An Associated Press reporter saw seven bodies burned beyond recognition. Rescue workers continued searching for casualties.
"We aren't sure this is the end, and there are quite a number of Israelis injured," said Yoav Biran, the Israeli Foreign Ministry's director general.
Meanwhile, two missiles also streaked by a jetliner owned by the Arkia charter company as it left the Mombasa airport bound for Tel Aviv. "It looks like a coordinated attack," Mituki said. Police reportedly are looking for a White Pajero, which is a type of SUV, which was seen racing away after the missiles were fired. Two cars were parked more than a mile from the airport, Mwangi said. The three men in the vehicle escaped.
Mwangi said two missile casings were found near the airport.
He said there were three or four men with Arab features seen in a white vehicle that fled the scene.
The aircraft landed safely about five hours later in Tel Aviv. None of the 261 passengers and 10 crew members was hurt. John Sawe, the Kenyan ambassador to Israel, said he suspected Usama bin Laden's Al Qaeda network, which bombed the U.S. embassy in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi in 1998, was connected to Thursday's attacks.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has asked the famed Mossad spy agency to track down the assailants and those who sent them, said Sharon adviser Zalman Shoval.Israeli Foreign Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday that it was "quite possible" that Al Qaeda was behind the attacks, but that Israel was also looking into other possibilities. He said he believed Palestinian militants have been trying to get shoulder-held missiles from Iran and the Lebanese guerrilla group Hezbollah.
Netanyahu called the missile attack "a very dangerous escalation of terror."
"It means that terror organizations and the regimes behind them are able to arm themselves with weapons which can cause mass casualties anywhere and everywhere," Netanyahu said. "Today, they're firing the missiles at Israeli planes, tomorrow they'll fire missiles at American planes, British planes, every country's aircraft. Therefore, there can be no compromise with terror."
Crew members didn't explain what happened until just before landing at Tel Aviv's Ben-Gurion International Airport.
The aircraft had just taken off from Mombasa airport when the pilot saw a flash of light to his left, said an Arkia Airlines official, Shlomo Hanael.
"All we actually felt was a slight bump - nothing too impressive," the jet's pilot, Capt. Rafi Marek, told Fox News Thursday. "We didn't exactly know what was going on."
Passengers said they heard a loud boom and felt the plane shake just after takeoff. "It felt like something fell off the wing," said Kerry Levy, 25.
Sharon Heldth, 23, said the pilot told the 261 passengers aboard the flight that there apparently was a technical mishap. Only an hour before landing were passengers told the truth. "There was a big uproar" in response, Heldth said. Marek said the crew felt a "kind of bump" on the plane and initially believed they hit a bird. He and some passengers saw two white vapor trails on the left side of the aircraft. He considered an emergency landing in Nairobi, Kenya, to check whether the plane was damaged, but after checking the plane's instruments to make sure they were working normally, he decided to continue on to Tel Aviv.
Once the plane entered Israeli airspace, it was accompanied by an Israeli fighter plane.
Israeli media reports identified the missiles as Soviet-era SAM-7 heat-seeking missiles.
There was no damage to the plane.
Asked by Fox whether the incident will affect whether he flies again or will be more nervous in the air, Marek, a resident of Jerusalem, said: "I'm much more concerned sending my children to the center of town to school … unfortunately, this is not something new to us Israelis."
The Israelis aboard the Arkia flight spent a week at the Israeli-owned Paradise Hotel.
Arkia Airlines, which is headquartered in Tel Aviv, operates mainly as a charter company with flights to numerous European and Mediterranean destinations. It owns a fleet of 42 planes.
Kenyan authorities have held two people in connection with the attacks.
Kenya's internal security minister, Julius Sunkuli, told Reuters: "We are holding two people and we are still questioning them." He added: "We suspect them. They were in the vicinity of this area and we don't know what they were doing here. Police are still investigating."
Sunkuli did not disclose the nationality of the two.
Meanwhile, in London, Nancy Kirui, the Kenyan high commissioner to the United Kingdom, said, "We are absolutely shocked and horrified at this latest incident of terrorism in our country … our hearts go out to the friends and families of those who lost their lives."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
BUS BOMB IN MANILA, PHILLIPINES
MANILA, Philippines (Oct. 18, 2002 ) - A bomb ripped through a bus in suburban Manila late Friday, killing at least three people and injuring 23 others, hours after a grenade blast in the capital's financial district and a day after two deadly bombings in the southern Philippines.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the bus blast, but officials have said the al-Qaida-linked Abu Sayyaf group was the most likely suspect for Thursday's noontime bombings in downtown Zamboanga city that killed seven people and injured more than 150.
The bus explosion took place at 10 p.m. on the EDSA highway, one of the capital's main thoroughfares, in Quezon City, despite tightened security following the earlier attacks.
"I was sleeping, then there was a very loud explosion,'' teenage student Merlyn Villareal, who was aboard the bus but was not injured, told GMA7 television as she fought back tears. "There was chaos, and I was pinned down. I was kicked around and found myself outside the bus.''
The explosion in the back of the blue Golden Highway company bus ripped off its roof and part of its sides and sent debris flying 20-30 (yards) away. Two hours later, workers still had not managed to retrieve one badly mangled body from the vehicle, which had roughly 50 to 60 seats.
"This is the handiwork of people with evil minds,'' national police operations chief Vidal Querol said.
Napoleon Castro, a Quezon City police official, said officials believed the person who brought the bomb aboard the bus was among the dead.
"It was a very powerful bomb for this bus to be wrecked like this,'' Castro said.
Traffic was backed up more than a mile on the highway, which is several lanes across where the explosion took place.
Querol said there were no immediate suspects and that investigators were gathering fragments from the bomb to analyze.
National Security Adviser Roilo Golez said the way bombing was carried out "is very similar'' to the Dec. 30, 2000, simultaneous bomb attacks in Manila that killed 22 people and were linked to Jemaah Islamiyah, a shadowy, Southeast Asian-based Muslim group suspected of links to al-Qaida.
"The only conclusion we can make is that we should be on the alert and that the public should help,'' Golez said.
He said top government officials will meet Saturday to assess the situation.
No one has been charged for the 2000 bombings that hit several public facilities, including a train station. But Fathur Rohman Al-Ghozi, an Indonesian, told police he helped plan them. He pleaded guilty to explosives possession charges in April and was sentenced to 10-12 years in prison.
He was arrested in January and led police to a buried stash of 1.2 tons of TNT that allegedly were to be used for attacks on Western targets in Singapore. Philippine prosecutors said Monday they have strong evidence to charge two foreigners and two Filipinos who allegedly provided money to buy the explosives.
Like Al-Ghozi, the four are believed to be members of Jemaah Islamiyah.
The country, already jittery, was put further on edge when a grenade exploded early Friday in Manila's financial district. The grenade caused no injuries and slight damage to one vehicle. A second unexploded grenade was found nearby.
While officials said they believed that explosion was unrelated to terrorism, Manila Mayor Lito Atienza imposed a night curfew in the capital for everyone under age 18.
Golez said top government officials will meet Saturday to assess the situation following the bus blast.
Earlier Friday, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo visited the Zamboanga bombing sites, saying the country's bomb attacks have gone from "bad to worst'' and urged Filipinos to help fight terrorists.
"Terrorism cannot survive for long in an unfriendly environment,'' Arroyo told reporters. "Let us give terrorism the unfriendly environment.''
Defense Secretary Angelo Reyes speculated that Zamboanga bombings may have been staged by the Abu Sayyaf or the Muslim separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front to either retaliate for or divert attention from simultaneous military offensives against the guerrillas on two fronts in the south.
The Abu Sayyaf recently threatened attacks in retaliation for an ongoing military offensive against it, and has been blamed for an Oct. 2 bombing in Zamboanga that killed four people, including an American Green Beret.
Some 260 American troops remain in Zamboanga in the violence-wracked southern Philippines following a six-month U.S. counterterrorism training exercise aimed at helping Filipino troops fight the Abu Sayyaf. No foreigners were believed to have been injured in Thursday's bombings.
10/18/02 13:17 EDT
Copyright 2002 The Associated Press.
October 11, 2002
— By Todd Eastham
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Tarot-card sniper struck again on Friday, bringing his toll to eight dead and two injured in the Washington area, police said on Saturday, as fear gripped the capital's normally tranquil suburbs.
The sniper, who uses a high-velocity rifle to pick off random victims from long range, remains at large despite a massive law enforcement operation, including the FBI.
"Ballistics evidence has conclusively linked the shooting in Spotsylvania to the other shootings in D.C. and Montgomery County," said Maj. Howard Smith of Spotsylvania County police.
Physical evidence has been scant, with one taunting clue apparently left by the methodical shooter near where a 13-year-old victim was shot: A Tarot "Death" card with the words "Dear Mr. Policeman, I am God" scrawled on the back.
Authorities would not comment on a Washington Post online report which said police were working on a composite sketch of a possible suspect. The Post said police in Spotsylvania had briefly detained a 36-year-old Georgia man described as a white male of medium build with sandy brown hair and a mustache.
"They said I looked like the picture of someone at another shooting," the man, identified as Hobert Epps, told the Post.
Kenneth Bridges, 53, a businessman and father of six on the road from Philadelphia, was killed on Friday at an Exxon gasoline station near a busy interstate highway in Virginia, police said, identifying him as the latest victim.
The first five sniper shootings occurred in a bloody 15-hour spree that began Oct. 2 in Montgomery County, Maryland, a prosperous and bustling northern suburb of Washington, D.C.
Sniper attacks also killed one man in Washington D.C. and another in Virginia. The sniper wounded a woman in Virginia and the 13-year-old boy outside his school in Prince George's County in Maryland. In each case only one shot was fired.
The killings have caused shockwaves throughout the suburbs and once more raised the question of gun control in the United States which is periodically traumatized by serial killers.
NEAT AND METHODICAL KILLER
Police have not disclosed any credible eyewitness sightings of the shooter, although the attacks occurred in public places, and all but two were in broad daylight.
The shooter is probably in his 20s or 30s, may have grown up with guns or learned to shoot in the military, crime experts have said. His actions peg him as neat and methodical, precise and unhurried. He appears to plan ahead meticulously.
Unlike most serial or mass killers, who may be angry with a co-worker, boss or relative, this one appears to be targeting people with no connection to himself or each other.
The shootings, however, did recall the "Son of Sam" killings in New York in 1976 and 1977. Shooter David Berkowitz wrote letters to police between random attacks that killed six people and wounded seven.
Residents in the capital and its suburbs are still reeling from the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the Pentagon and the anthrax letters sent soon afterward.
People around Washington could talk of little else. High school football games were canceled on Friday throughout the region, as were weekend outdoor activities.
Friday's killing occurred at 9:30 a.m. at an Exxon station off the busy I-95 highway in Spotsylvania County south of Washington. Bridges was shot even as a Virginia state trooper was dealing with a traffic accident across the street.
The trooper rushed to help the victim, who was later confirmed dead at an area hospital. Police funneled traffic on the highway into a single lane while officers in flak jackets cradling automatic weapons peered into each vehicle.
Four of the ten shootings linked to the sniper have been at gasoline stations, three of them close to major highway interchanges.
WHITE TRUCK OR VAN
Montgomery County Police Chief Charles Moose said authorities hoped to release "a graphic" compiled from eye witness reports later on Saturday of a vehicle or vehicles suspected of being involved in at least two of the shootings, which have been described by police as a "white box truck" and "white panel van."
"We hope it will help people and prompt their memory in regards to the box truck that we've been talking about," said Moose. He also called on people in the region to watch out for others acting unusually, including "someone that was not at work during the incident, has not been keeping their schedules ... (displaying) some sort of anger toward police."
Like Friday's shooting, the sniper's first fatal attack also occurred very close to a police officer.
Police, who said a toll-free "tip line" had been overwhelmed with as many as 1,000 calls an hour, said more than 1,700 of those tips had led to "credible" leads in the case. A reward for information has hit $500,000.
"The eyes and ears of the public are some of our best assets right now," Virginia Gov. Mark Warner said at the Spotsylvania news briefing. "We will bring this matter to a conclusion."
October 12, 2002
MANADO, Indonesia (Reuters) - A suspected bomb exploded in the front yard of the Philippines consulate in the Indonesian city Manado on Saturday, causing some damage but no casualties in an attack that officials blamed on terrorists.
The explosion, which occurred around dusk, blew out the windows of the two-storey consulate in the country's northeast and knocked over the gate of the compound.
"We suspect that this was a homemade bomb placed in the yard," one police officer on the scene, who declined to be identified, told Reuters.
The Philippine consul-general, Renaldi Martinez, accused terrorists of being behind the blast. He gave no evidence.
Manado is a mainly Christian city located in the northeast of the world's most populous Muslim nation. The city is a jumping-off point for the southern Philippines.
Police had no motive for the attack, although there have been latent tensions over the arrests this year in the Philippines of Indonesians suspected of involvement in terrorism. The arrests have drawn fire from some radical Islamic groups in Indonesia.
Martinez said there were no casualties as the consulate was shut at the time. The city mayor, Wempie Frederik, added: "The perpetrators were very professional. They were terrorists."
The periodic detention of fishermen from the two countries has also been a minor irritant in bilateral relations.
Some foreign diplomats have recently expressed worries about security in Indonesia. Last month the U.S. closed its mission in Jakarta for a week over concerns of a possible terrorist attack.
In mid-2000, a car bomb exploded outside the front of the Philippine ambassador's home in Jakarta, killing two people and badly wounding the envoy.
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BALI, Indonesia (Oct. 13, 2002) -- Terrified tourists tried Sunday to flee this island paradise that turned into an inferno, with the death toll from a pair of bombings climbing to 187 and fears growing that al-Qaida has taken its terror campaign to the world's largest Muslim country.
Many of those killed by the two bombs that tore through a nightclub district on Bali island Saturday were Australians as well as other foreigners from Canada, Britain, Germany and Sweden. Three Americans were among the more than 300 people injured.
No one claimed responsibility for the bombings - the worst terrorist attack in Indonesia's history - but suspicion turned to al-Qaida and an affiliated group, Jemaah Islamiyah, which wants to establish a pan-Islamic state across Malaysia, Indonesia and the southern Philippines. It is accused of plotting to blow up the U.S. and other embassies in Singapore.
In Washington, President Bush condemned the attack as ``a cowardly act designed to create terror and chaos'' and offered U.S. help in finding the perpetrators.
``The world must confront this global menace, terrorism,'' he said.
The attacks were on the second anniversary of the al-Qaida-linked attack against USS Cole off Yemen that left 17 sailors dead and took place amid signs of increasing terrorist activity that had led to the closure of U.S. embassies and renewed terror alerts for Americans.
The destruction started when a small homemade bomb exploded outside Paddy's Discotheque in the maze of clubs and bars on Kuta Beach, a popular haunt with young travelers. Shortly afterward, a huge blast from a bomb in a Toyota Kijang, a jeep-like vehicle, 30 yards down the street devastated the crowded Sari Club, a surfers' hangout.
A third, smaller bomb exploded outside the U.S. consulate. No one was injured in that blast.
The second blast ripped into the open-air bar, triggering a massive burst of flames that officials said was caused by the explosion of gas cylinders used for cooking. The explosion collapsed the roof of the flimsy structure, trapping revelers in flaming wreckage. The explosions and fire damaged about 20 buildings and devastated much of the block.
Identification of the dead was slow, since some were burned beyond recognition.
American Amos Libby, 25, felt himself lifted off his feet as he walked by the Sari Club as the bomb detonated.
``All the buildings in the vicinity just collapsed, cars overturned and debris from the buildings fell on them,'' he said, without giving his hometown. ``I have never seen anything so horrible. There were so many people, 18 to 20 year olds, people in pieces all over the street.''
New Zealander Lonny McDowell, 25, was at Paddy's when the blast blew chairs and concrete through the bar. He said he saw a man with no legs and another with a cable stuck through his stomach.
``Who knows if this couldn't happen again? I really don't want to go back to Kuta,'' he said looking for his airline ticket home.
Indonesian National Police Chief Gen. Da'i Bachtiar called the it ``the worst act of terror in Indonesia's history.''
President Megawati Sukarnoputri flew to Bali and wept as she toured the wreckage. Asked about a possible link to al-Qaida, she said: ``That will be continuously investigated to that this can be uncovered as soon as possible.'' She promised to cooperate with other nations to fight terror.
U.S. Ambassador Ralph Boyce told The Associated Press that it was not possible yet to pin the Bali attack on al-Qaida, but noted that increasing evidence in recent weeks has confirmed al-Qaida's presence in Indonesia and reaching out to local extremists.
``In recent weeks, we have been able to put an end to a year of speculation as to whether al-Qaida might be in Indonesia, or relocating to Indonesia, or using Indonesia as a base of operations, after the fall of Afghanistan,'' Boyce said.
The United States and Indonesia's neighbors have urged Jakarta for months to pass an anti-terrorism law that has been languishing in the Parliament contending there is a strong al-Qaida presence here. Without the law, Indonesia says, security forces cannot arrest suspects without clear evidence they have committed a crime.
While its neighbors have arrested scores of militants from Jemaah Islamiyah, Jakarta has done little and denied that it is a haven for terrorists.
``This horrible incident has only made it that much more urgent that they find some way to deal with this problem,'' Boyce said. ``They (Indonesians) are in the middle of doing that.''
The U.S. Embassy was considering scaling back staff, though no decision had been taken. Americans were warned on the Embassy Web site to consider leaving the country.
In Denpasar, Bali's main city, the airport was thronged by stunned, mostly young travelers cutting short their vacations and desperate to go home after the most terrifying night of their lives.
Crowds camped out near a McDonald's, working their mobile phones to make hard-to-get airline bookings. Many spent the night on the beach, terrified after the blasts to go near built-up areas.
The Australian air force set up a massive evacuation operation to bring home survivors for medical treatment. The first flight arrived Sunday in the northern city of Darwin, carrying 15 people identified as America, Australian and Canadian.
Australians were shocked by the attacks. Bali is a popular tourist destination, and 20,000 Australians were estimated to be on the island. Seven of the 24 dead identified by Sunday evening were Australian.
Australian Prime Minister John Howard vowed to urgently review national security but said that staunch support for the United States in the war on terror would not be affected.
``This is a huge national tragedy for Australia and for Australians,'' he said.
Howard said the attack appeared to target Australian and other Western travelers.
Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said Australian officials didn't know who was behind the bombings, ``but the organization we've been very concerned about in Indonesia ... is called Jemaah Islamiyah, and it has certainly been responsible for terrorist attacks over the years.''
Several countries have pressed Indonesia to arrest Jemaah Islamiyah's alleged leader, Abu Bakar Bashir. But Indonesia says it has no evidence. Bashir has sympathizers in Megawati's government.
Paul Wilkinson, chairman of the Center for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, said he believed the attacks were probably the work of ``a cell of an organization closely affiliated to al-Qaida.''
He mentioned Jemaah Islamiya as such a group. ``What it underlines is that the network of al-Qaida is still capable of extremely deadly and devastating attacks and has a global reach,'' he said.
In Germany, the Foreign Ministry said that five Germans were badly injured and two slightly. One German resident of Bali was missing. Germany urged its citizens to avoid going to Bali.
In September, the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta closed for six days due to threats linked to al-Qaida. Other regional U.S. embassies also closed. The Philippines disclosed that Washington feared attacks using truck bombs.
Last month, a grenade exploded in a car near a house belonging to the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta, killing the man suspected of handling it. The Indonesia government blamed it on a feud between gangs.
10/13/02 14:12 EDT
Copyright 2002 The Associated Press.
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BALI, Indonesia (Oct. 14, 2002 ) - Indonesia's defense minister blamed al-Qaida and its extremist allies on Monday for the massive bomb attack that killed more than 180 people at a nightclub on the resort island of Bali.
''We are sure al-Qaida is here,'' Matori Abdul Djalil said after a Cabinet meeting in Jakarta. ''The Bali bomb blast is linked to al-Qaida with the cooperation of local terrorists.''
The leader of Jemaah Islamiyah, a group linked to Osama bin Laden's terror network, denied involvement and implicated the United States.
The defense minister's statement was the first time that a top government official had implicated al-Qaida in Saturday's attack, the worst of its kind worldwide since the Sept. 11 attacks in America. Until now, police investigators have said they had few clues and no suspects in the blasts that tore through the Kuta Beach nightclub district.
FBI and Australian detectives joined the hunt for the killers while forensic experts painstakingly tried to identify bodies. Indonesian government officials said 181 people had died, though hospital workers put the figure at 190.
Many of the victims were tourists from Australia, where hundreds of burned, bandaged and bruised survivors arrived in Sydney on Monday to tearful reunions with family and friends. Other victims were from Britain, the Netherlands, France, Germany, Ecuador and Indonesia.
Two Americans were killed, the U.S. State Department said, and three others were among more than 300 people injured. Dozens of foreigners remained unaccounted for.
Among the missing was Jake Young, a former University of Nebraska football player who had been working as an attorney in Hong Kong for a London-based firm. The 34-year-old was traveling in Bali with his rugby team, and had not contacted his family since the blast.
''We're clinging to a thin ray of hope that he's going to be found alive,'' his father, Jacob Young, said Sunday night from Midland, Texas.
The U.S. Embassy in Jakarta, often the target of bomb threats, ordered all nonessential staff and dependents to leave Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim country. However, American businesses in Indonesia declined to follow suit, saying they did not feel the situation warranted drastic moves.
A bomb threat shut down the embassy's club for a second day. The Australian school in Jakarta closed as a precaution.
In Washington, President Bush condemned the attack as ''a cowardly act designed to create terror and chaos'' and offered U.S. help in finding the perpetrators.
Fearing that terrorists could strike again, thousands of stunned tourists thronged Bali's airport, desperately looking for flights. Many vacationers camped overnight on beaches, shunning built-up areas in case of more attacks.
''We just want to go back to our families,'' said Carima Sebba, 26, from the Netherlands. ''I'm scared, I won't be back for a long time.''
As stocks tumbled in Jakarta by more than 9 percent Monday and the Indonesian rupiah also took a dive against the U.S. dollar, many worried about a long-term decline in tourism, one of Indonesia's top industries.
More than 5 million foreigners visited Indonesia in 2001 - about 1.5 million to Bali alone. All told, they inject about $5 billion into the economy each year.
No one claimed responsibility for the bombing - the worst terrorist attack in Indonesia's history. But suspicion immediately turned to al-Qaida and an affiliated group, Jemaah Islamiyah, which is said to want a pan-Islamic state across Malaysia, Indonesia and the southern Philippines.
Jemaah Islamiyah has already been implicated in a plot at the beginning of this year to bomb foreign embassies in the region, and Australia says it is a prime suspect in the Bali attack.
''The attack bears the hallmarks of JI,'' said an expert on al-Qaida, Rohan Gunaratna. ''Only the JI has both the intention and capability to conduct a professional terrorist attack like the Bali operation.''
U.S. Ambassador Ralph Boyce told The Associated Press that while the Bali bombings couldn't yet be pinned on al-Qaida, there is evidence that it is operating in Indonesia and reaching out to local extremists.
Abu Bakar Bashir, a Muslim cleric accused of leading Jemaah Islamiyah, denied involvement and blamed the blast on the United States.
''I suspect that the bombing was engineered by the United States and its allies to justify allegations that Indonesia is a base for terrorists,'' he told the AP in telephone interview from Solo, a city in central Java, where he runs an Islamic boarding school.
Indonesian police refused to say whether Bashir would be questioned despite repeated calls by neighboring countries that he be arrested.
President Megawati Sukarnoputri, who wept as she toured the wreckage Sunday, promised to cooperate with other nations in the investigation.
Security Minister Bambang Susilo Yudoyono said there were signs that terrorists were planning attacks against key industrial sites, including Exxon Mobil's Arun liquefied natural gas plant in Aceh and the Caltex refinery in Sumatra.
''We will increase the security alert in those areas,'' Yudoyono said after a Cabinet meeting.
On Bali, there was no visible evidence of a higher security presence or stricter controls at the airport, though police officials insisted that an elite unite had been deployed. Police said they had no suspects.
Balinese officials said that only 39 positive identifications had been made, listing 15 Australians, eight Britons, five Singaporeans, six Indonesians, one German, one French citizen, one Dutch citizen, one New Zealander and one Ecuadorean.
In London, the government said at least 30 Britons had died.
Seven U.N. staffers from nearby East Timor, vacationing in Bali, were injured and two were unaccounted for, U.N. officials said.
The destruction started when a small bomb exploded outside Paddy's Discotheque in a maze of clubs and bars on Kuta Beach. Shortly afterward, a huge blast from a bomb in a Toyota minivan devastated the Sari Club, a crowded surfer hangout nearby.
The second blast ripped into the open-air bar, triggering a massive burst of flames that officials said was fueled by gas cylinders used for cooking. The explosions and fire devastated much of the block.
Australian Prime Minister John Howard said Monday he was dispatching his foreign and justice ministers to Indonesia to discuss cooperation in the hunt for the bombers.
AP-NY-10-14-02 1130EDT
Copyright 2002 The Associated Press.
Bomber Killed in Mall Blast, Say Finnish Authorities
VOA News
12 Oct 2002 13:40 UTC
Finnish authorities say the man who carried out a shopping mall bomb attack died in the blast.
Police said Saturday that a male younger than 20 and from the Helsinki area is responsible for the attack that left at least seven people dead and 60 wounded. Doctors say the death toll could rise.
The Finnish government and crime officials met Saturday in an emergency session to discuss the incident. Finland's Prime Minister Paavo Lipponen is quoted as saying authorities have not ruled out a terrorist attack as the cause. The powerful bomb went off Friday night at the shopping center, in the town of Vantaa, about 15 kilometers north of the capital, Helsinki, just as stores were about to close.
The blast ripped through the first floor of the three-story building in the center of the mall, near where a clown was blowing up balloons for children. The bomb shattered glass, and sent metal debris flying and screaming shoppers and their children fleeing.
Two-thousand people are said to have been inside the building when the explosion occurred. The blast has shocked Finland, where violent crimes are relatively rare.
The last bomb attack in the country was in July, when a car bomb killed one man in what police say was probably gang violence. Reuters news agency reports this is the deadliest explosion in Finland since the 1970s, when a blast at a munitions factory killed 40 people.
France Says TNT Traces Found on Gutted Yemen Tanker
Fri Oct 11, 2002 6:18 PM ET
By Rawhi Abeidoh
MUKALLA, Yemen (Reuters) - France said Friday a blast that gutted a French-flagged oil supertanker off Yemen was very probably "a terrorist attack" and Yemen deployed military ships and helicopters to protect foreign vessels.
A day after U.S. and French experts found fiberglass debris from what could have been an attacker's boat, French Defense Minister Michele Alliot-Marie said "traces of TNT" had been found inside the tanker.
France said it expected Yemen to find and punish those responsible if it turns out Sunday's explosion aboard the Limburg was not an accident.
In the strongest statement Paris has made on the blast, President Jacques Chirac's spokeswoman said: "France will not let itself be intimidated.
Mounting indications show that the hypothesis of a terrorist attack is very plausible today."
"If it was an attack, the president expects the Yemeni authorities to do everything so that the people responsible for it are identified and punished."
The French government said later that first indications from their team of experts in Yemen pointed to an attack.
"Parts of a boat ... and traces of TNT" were found inside the tanker, Alliot-Marie told France Inter radio.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Francois Rivasseau added: "Our experts have uncovered debris which does not belong to the tanker."
SECURITY TIGHTENED
Yemen, an impoverished Arab country trying to shake off an image as a haven for Muslim militants, said Friday it had tightened security around its ports.
"Military ships, patrol boats and helicopters are deployed to provide monitoring and protect foreign ships visiting Yemeni ports," a Yemeni government official told Reuters, adding that fishing boats had been ordered not to approach foreign vessels.
Yemeni officials said up to 20 people had been arrested as a "pre-emptive measure."
Earlier, Yemen said for the first time a guerrilla attack could have caused the blast, having earlier blamed an accidental fire rather than an attack like the bombing of the U.S. warship Cole in Yemen's Aden port in 2000.
In Mukalla, 18 anti-terrorism experts from the United States, France and Yemen declined to speak to reporters after returning from the tanker, charred by the explosion and anchored offshore.
The blast killed one of the 25 French and Bulgarian crew on the supertanker, which was carrying 400,000 barrels of Saudi crude.
A source close to the probe said the experts had focused on the gaping hole in the tanker's side, where the fiberglass debris had been found.
CAREFUL EXAMINATION
Asked about a Yemeni cabinet minister's remark that the debris could have come from the ship's lifeboats, destroyed in the blast, the source said: "Most probably it is true that two of the lifeboats were badly burned by the fire."
"But the lifeboats' color was red, while the debris we found was blue or white, which is almost the same color as that of fishing boats in the area," the source told Reuters.
A French source close to the probe said: "In my personal opinion it is 99 percent a terrorist attack. Most of the (edges of the) hole were pointing inward and it was at the water level. I could have believed that it might have been an accident if the hole was much below the surface level or much higher."
The Limburg's owners, Euronav SA, quoted crew members as saying the blast occurred shortly after a small boat was seen speeding toward the tanker as it waited for a tug to take it to Mina al-Dabah near Mukalla, about 500 miles from Sanaa.
A State Department official said the United States also was leaning more toward the attack theory.
But State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said he would leave it to U.S. and French experts examining the scene to draw any conclusions.
"I would say that terrorism had not been ruled out as a possible cause," Boucher said.
Reports of a boat approaching the tanker recalled the attack on the Cole that killed 17 U.S. sailors.
The United States blames that attack on Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network, which is also its chief suspect in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Last month, the U.S. Navy warned of possible Qaeda attacks on tankers in the Gulf and the Red Sea, which carry about one-third of global oil trade.
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Boat Debris Found on Gutted French Tanker Off Yemen
Thu Oct 10, 2002 4:46 PM ET
By Rawhi Abeidoh
MUKALLA, Yemen (Reuters) - A French inspector said on Thursday debris of what could be an attacking boat had been found on the supertanker holed and gutted by an explosion off Yemen.
"We found debris of a boat which obviously does not belong to the tanker," Jean-Francois Perrouty told Reuters after examining the ship. He said the debris was made of fiberglass.
A French Foreign Ministry statement said the first results of the probe seemed to show the blast on the French-flagged Limburg on Sunday was due to an attack.
A Yemeni cabinet minister said later on Thursday however that the debris could have come from one of the ship's own lifeboats which had been destroyed in the blast.
"The inspectors have indeed found fiberglass parts on board the tanker today, but they might be from a rescue boat that belonged to the tanker itself," the official Yemeni news agency Saba quoted Transport Minister Saeed Yafai as saying.
He said the investigators had agreed to send the debris for laboratory examination.
Earlier, as U.S., French and Yemeni anti-terror teams examined the supertanker for evidence, Yemen said for the first time a guerrilla attack could have caused the blast on Sunday.
Yemen, trying to shed an image as a haven for Islamic militants, had maintained an accidental fire caused the tanker blast in the Gulf of Aden, not an attack similar to the suicide bombing of the U.S. warship Cole in Yemen's Aden port in 2000.
But Yafai told a news conference in Mukalla earlier on Thursday it was possible the blast that gouged the ship's hull had been deliberate.
"We are not ruling out anything, but we don't want to take a hasty decision before the end of the investigation," said the minister, who heads the Yemeni committee probing the blast.
Yafai also said police had arrested an unspecified number of people as a "pre-emptive measure." He did not elaborate but security sources said earlier up to 20 people had been detained.
Asked if the debris looked similar to that found on the Cole, attacked by a small boat laden with explosives, the inspector Perrouty said: "Possibly yes."
A French source familiar with the investigation told Reuters: "In my personal opinion it is 99 percent a terrorist attack. Most of the (edges of the) hole were pointing inward and it was at the (sea) water level. I could have believed that it might have been an accident if the hole was much below the surface level or much higher." The Limburg's owners, Euronav SA, quoted crew members as saying the blast occurred shortly after a small boat was seen speeding toward the tanker as it waited for a tug to take it to Mina al-Dabah near Mukalla, about 500 miles from San.
LEANING TOWARD ATTACK THEORY
A State Department official said on condition of anonymity that, like Yemen, the United States was leaning more toward the theory that an attack might have caused the blast.
"Initially a lot of things pointed to some kind of an accident. Now there are additional indications saying this really does look more like something deliberate and may have been, dare I use the word, terrorism," the official said.
State Department spokesman Richard Boucher, speaking later at a news briefing, said he would leave it to U.S. and French experts examining the scene to draw any conclusions.
"I don't want to speculate at this point about what results and conclusions the investigators might reach. I would say that terrorism had not been ruled out as a possible cause," he said.
Reports of a boat approaching the tanker recalled the attack on the Cole that killed 17 U.S. sailors.
Washington blames the attack on Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network which is also its chief suspect in last year's September 11 attacks. Last month, the U.S. Navy warned of possible Qaeda attacks on tankers in the Gulf and the Red Sea, which carry about one third of global oil trade.
A Yemeni government source said it would take a month at least for the final probe report to be issued. Yemen and the United States are still probing the Cole attack. The Arab state, which arrested over 100 suspected militants after September 11, 2000, took days to declare the Cole bombing a terror attack.
A Lloyds report said photographs of the 26-foot wide oval-shaped hole with its jagged metal edge facing inwards supported claims of a deliberate attack.
Sunday was the eve of the anniversary of the start of the U.S. military campaign against al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan (news - web sites).
All but one of the 25-member French and Bulgarian crew survived the blast on the supertanker, which was carrying 400,000 barrels of Saudi crude when the explosion occurred.
(Additional reporting by Mohammed Sudam in Sanaa)