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Indonesia police say al-Qaida funded at least 3 suicide bombings+(Japan Economic Newswire Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge)JAKARTA, Feb. 28_(Kyodo) _ The al-Qaida network helped fund at least three suicide bombings in Indonesia including the 2002 attacks on the resort island of Bali, which killed 202 people, a senior police officer said Tuesday. "It was from the head of al-Qaida," Petrus Reinhard Golose, deputy chief of the Detachment 88 anti-terror police task force, said, implicitly referring to al-Qaida founder Osama bin Laden. The network directly helped fund two Bali suicide bombings in 2002 and 2005 and a bombing on the JW Marriott Hotel in Jakarta in 2003, which were blamed on Jemaah Islamiyah or JI, the alleged Southeast Asian wing of al-Qaida, Golose told reporters on the sidelines of an international counter-terrorism seminar. A suicide bombing attack on the Australian Embassy in 2004 was not directly funded by al-Qaida, but the money, he said, "was the leftover cash of the Marriott bombing, which was in the hands of Azahari." Azahari, a Malaysian national and one of the most-wanted terrorist suspects in Southeast Asia, was killed during a police raid in East Java Province last year. Azahari and his Malaysian comrade Noordin Mohammad Top, who is on the run, are believed to have masterminded a series of attacks in the country. Golose said the funds in the three suicide bombing attacks were sent to Indonesia via couriers, who have been captured by police. Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, arranged the delivery of the money, which passed through Thailand and Malaysia, Golose said. Golose refused to say which countries the money came from and who the couriers were. However, he said that the couriers "were foreigners" and that "they were from al-Qaida." He also said that some of the perpetrators, who have been in police detention, confessed they had met with bin Laden and signed agreements with him before carrying out the attacks. He did not elaborate on the agreements. The Indonesian bombings were also financed by donations collected from sympathizers of JI and by a series of robberies, Golose said. Meanwhile, during the seminar, Golose showed video footage in which Top declared that he is "the commander of the Malay region" of al-Qaida and that his group is named Tandzim Qoedataul Jihad. The senior police officer also showed a statement written by Top, who said the group was set up early last year. |