New network suspected in Poso attack

The Jakarta Post, Palu/Jakarta Wed, June 05 2013,


The Central Sulawesi Police have announced that the suicide bomber who detonated explosives strapped to his body inside the Poso Police compound on Monday was not among the 20 terrorist suspects on their most-wanted list.

“He is a new player and his terrorist network remains unknown,” Central Sulawesi Police spokesman Adj. Sr. Comr. Soemarno said in the Central Sulawesi capital, Palu, on Tuesday.

Soemarno made the announcement soon after a National Police forensic team completed an autopsy on the remains of the suicide bomber at the Bhayangkara Hospital in Palu.

The autopsy confirmed that the bomber was a man in his late-30s, 170 centimeters in height with dark brown skin.

“We are still looking for the suspect’s family to match their DNA samples,” he said.

Members of the forensic team collected blood and DNA samples from the suicide bomber.

Earlier, National Police spokesman Insp. Gen. Suhardi Alius said the bomber may have been terror fugitive Basri, an accomplice of East Indonesia Mujahideen leader and fugitive Santoso.

Basri, who was previously sentenced to 19 years in prison for mutilating three students, escaped from Central Sulawesi’s Ampana Penitentiary on April 19.

Meanwhile in Jakarta, the National Police released a photograph of the suicide bomber. National Police spokesman Brig. Gen. Boy Rafli Amar urged anyone who had information about the suspect to come forward.
“We urge his family or those who knew him to give us any information they may have,” he said during a press conference on Tuesday.

Boy also said that police investigators were examining the chassis number of the bomber’s motorcycle to trace its owner.

The motorbike’s licence plate was destroyed in the blast.

Boy added that investigators had yet to determine whether the explosives were ignited by remote control.

“Generally, suicide bombers detonate the bombs themselves. [This procedure] was used in the 2002 Bali bombing; the J.W. Marriott bombing on Aug. 5, 2003, and the bombing of café areas in Kuta and Jimbaran, Bali, on Oct. 1, 2005. The last one was the 2009 Ritz-Carlton bombing [in Jakarta],” he said.

Following the Poso suicide attack, the police are investigating reports of a possible terror plot.

On Tuesday, the East Java Police launched an investigation into suspicious transactions involving a 23-year-old man, identified only as FI, whose “fish bomb” exploded on Saturday in Lumajang, which is located in the south of the province.

Boy said that FI was found to have had conversations with several individuals on Facebook that led to financial transactions.

Meanwhile in Bekasi, local police have discovered a box filled with pipes and tubes, suspected to be bomb-making material, inside a vacant house in the Pondok Timur Mas housing complex.