U.S. Intelligence: Bali Attack 'Sophisticated'

Reuters / ABC ^

[RCW2001]

Oct. 14

— By Tabassum Zakaria

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The bombings of a popular nightclub strip in the Indonesian resort island of Bali were conducted by a "sophisticated" terrorist group because of the large amount of high explosives used and the coordination of the attacks, a U.S. intelligence official said on Monday.

That is why U.S. intelligence agencies believe the Saturday night bombings of an area frequented by foreign tourists was probably the work of a group linked to al Qaeda which would have the capability of striking that type of blow. More than 180 people were killed in the attacks.

"We haven't come to any final conclusions, but it's clearly the work of a sophisticated terrorist organization of which there are only a few, there are some in that region that are associated with al Qaeda like JI (Jemaah Islamiah)," a U.S. intelligence official told Reuters.

"There were near simultaneous explosions designed to inflict the greatest amount of casualties on innocent people," the official said.

Al Qaeda has been blamed for coordinated attacks against Western targets such as the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya, and the Sept. 11, 2001, suicide attacks that used four hijacked planes as weapons.

The network has also been linked to the USS Cole bombing in 2000 when a small boat carrying explosives blew up alongside the U.S. destroyer off Yemen, gouging a huge hole in its side.

U.S. intelligence agencies are also analyzing whether the Bali bombings were linked in some way to recent shooting deaths of U.S. Marines in Kuwait and an explosion at a French tanker off the coast of Yemen.

The speculation was that they could all be the work of independent terror cells responding to a call by al Qaeda leaders for increased action, officials said.

Qatar's al Jazeera television has recently broadcast audiotapes of Osama bin Laden and his top lieutenant Ayman al-Zawahri, as well as a statement the station said was faxed that carried bin Laden's signature. The messages called on Muslims to conduct war against the United States and Israel.

U.S. intelligence officials said the authenticity of the latest reported bin Laden statement had not been determined. U.S. intelligence agencies had earlier determined the audiotapes were probably genuine. The one by Zawahri was made in recent months, but the time frame for the one made by bin Laden could not be determined, they said.

The al Qaeda messages broadcast on Jazeera, along with other electronic communications picked up by U.S. intelligence agencies, have shown the type of increased "chatter" among terrorist suspects that have preceded past attacks, said Sen. Richard Shelby, an Alabama Republican.

"Most of the time there have been terrorist attacks immediately after a lot of signal traffic," Shelby, vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said.

That happened before the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Africa, the USS Cole attack and the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, he said.

"These are not isolated incidents," Shelby said of the recent attacks in Bali, Kuwait and Yemen. "They are measured, they are planned, they are part of the terrorist attacks, and there will be more," he told Reuters.

[BenLurkin]

"Sophisticated" evil. Well that certainly defines the current state of the world.

[Dark Wing]

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