Free Republic

Editorial: Clear thinking needed to explain Bali THE post-Bali battle for ideas has begun. Disturbingly, the moral relativism that underpinned much left/liberal analysis of the September 11, 2001, attacks is creeping in. The blame everything but the perpetrators brigade is at it again. The targets for blame are: the victims (ugly Western tourists); global poverty; the US; the war on terrorism, George Bush and/or John Howard; Israel; or all of the above. The terrorists and the Islamo-fascism that seems to have inspired their murderous actions are escaping culpability in quarters as seemingly far removed as Australian, British and Malaysian newspapers,...

THE FOLLOWING ARRIVED TODAY VIA E-MAIL. IT WAS SENT BY A CONTACT IN BALI TO THE HEAD OF OUR COMPANY AND THEN ON TO ME. ============================ Subject: Bali 12OCT02 Date: Thu, 24 Oct 2002 17:17:17 +0800 X-MS-Has-Attach: X-MS-TNEF-Correlator: Thread-Topic: FW: Bali 12OCT02 From: (redacted) Ladies & Gents, If you are having a bad day please take the time to read one young man's experience in Bali on that fateful night. You may well know this guy. Close your eyes and think what it might have been like and it gives it a personal perspective to the journalistic view. (from, redacted)...

Bomb designed for most carnageBy Keith MoorNovember 02, 2002THE Bali terrorists callously chose a rare type of bomb designed specifically to cause maximum carnage. A ferocious fireball created by the low-velocity bomb swept through the Sari Club and Paddy's Bar, killing at least 191 people. The Australian head of the joint investigation yesterday revealed the bomb was almost certainly made using about 150kg of chlorate. Australian Federal Police agent Graham Ashton also said 400kg of chlorate was stolen on the Indonesian island of Java in September this year. He and Australian Federal Police chief Mick Keelty yesterday provided details of...

DENPASAR, BALI (JP): Indonesians who trained as Islamic guerrillas in Libya and fought in Afghanistan might have committed the Oct. 12 Bali nightclub bombings that killed nearly 200 people, mostly foreign tourists, the chief investigator in the case Maj. Gen. I Made Pastika said here on Friday. I Made said his team was following 10 strong leads. "This must have been committed by professionals who had planned well and were well organized. I think they are Indonesians," he told AP. "There were Indonesians fighting in Afghanistan and some of them were trained in Libya. This is one of several possibilities....

STATEMENT BY THE CHAIRMAN OF THE ASEAN REGIONAL FORUM (ARF) ON THE TRAGIC TERRORIST BOMBING ATTACKS IN BALI His Excellency Mr. HOR Namhong, Senior Minister, Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation of Cambodia, Chairman of the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), on behalf of participating member-states and organization issues the following statement: The death toll of both foreign tourists and Indonesians claimed by terrorist bombing attacks in Bali, Indonesia, over the weekend sent a very shocking news all around the world. It is always the innocent people, as in this case both the foreign tourists and Indonesians, who were...

<p>DENPASAR, Indonesia (CNN) -- Islamic militant group al Qaeda has claimed responsibility for the bomb attack on a Bali nightclub in which more than 180 people died.</p> <p>The group said it had targeted "nightclubs and whorehouses in Indonesia" in a Web site message which also boasted of its aim to hit inside Arab and Islamic countries which are part of a "Jewish-Crusader" alliance.</p>

The suspect who has allegedly admitted taking part in the Bali bombings has told police he wanted to kill as many Americans as possible and "wasn't happy" that Australians died. Indonesian authorities also said yesterday that the 40-year-old Indonesian man, Amrozi, had led police to a house in Bali where explosives residue was recovered. Police say Amrozi has confessed to links with the Islamic cleric Abu Bakar Bashir, alleged spiritual head of the outlawed terror group Jemaah Islamiah, and the man regarded as al-Qaeda's number three, Hambali. As questioning of Amrozi continued, the first substantial evidence emerged linking the Bali...

THE devastating Bali bomb attack cost less than $14,000 to stage, according to Indonesian police who yesterday detained a fourth suspect in connection with the rapidly accelerating investigation. Chief of the investigating team General Made Mangku Pastika revealed the cost of the bombing was between 60million and 70 million rupiah - $12,000 and $14,000. General Pastika described the attack as a "low-cost, high-tech operation". "It was a very sharp strategy," he said. The money for the operation had been collected from several sources, but principally came in the form of Malaysian ringgits. Meanwhile, another man from Tenggulun in East Java,...

JAKARTA, INDONESIA - Late last week, Indonesian and Australian police investigating the Bali bombing stumbled across the break they were hoping for: an act of naiveté by one of the bombers. His error has led to four arrests in Indonesia and given almost certain proof of Al Qaeda's involvement in the attack. Indonesian police now know the identities of up to a dozen men with ties to last month's bombing who are still inside Indonesia, and 10 more who are believed to have fled the country through Malaysia. Most of those men are Indonesian, but a domestic investigator said there...

A LEADING member of terror group Jemaah Islamiah (JI) helped mastermind the Bali bombings, Indonesia's police chief has said. Imam Samudra was implicated in the Bali blast and in other bombings in the country by detained suspect Amrozi, police chief General Da'i Bachtiar said. Foreign governments have previously voiced strong suspicion but given no proof that Jemaah Islamiah, which is believed to have connections to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network, played a role in the deadly attack. Bachtiar did not identify Samudra as a JI member. But top security minister Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono last month described Samudra, who like Amrozi...

BALI, Indonesia (Reuters) - Smiling and waving at reporters, a fresh-faced Indonesian who has admitted being one of the Bali bombers, on Wednesday told of his delight at the attacks and said he went sightseeing in the days before the blasts. Wearing police-issue shorts and a blue T-shirt with the word "detainee" splashed across his back, Amrozi looked relaxed as more than 100 reporters and cameramen watched the national police chief question the prime suspect in the attack. Police chief General Da'i Bachtiar said Amrozi was not in Bali when the bombs exploded on the night of October 12, ripping...

CANBERRA, Nov 14 (Reuters) - Australians were outraged on Thursday by images of a happy, joking Bali bomber confessing to police in Indonesia, condemning the smile of the Indonesian as proof the bombers were "bloodthirsty" and "sneering" people. Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer lashed out at the images of the smiling, waving bomber -- televised across Australia and splashed across front pages -- as "ugly images" that would distress relatives of the nearly 200 people killed. "I looked at him on television this morning, you know laughing and joking and waving, and I think to myself, how would I...

AUSTRALIA has reacted with outrage to television and newspaper pictures of a selfconfessed Bali bomber smiling and joking with Indonesia’s chief of police. Alexander Downer, the Foreign Minister, said: “I think these people are so bloodthirsty. Their sort of ugly, sneering, amused attitude at the slaughter of innocent people — it’s just horrific that there are people like that.” The suspect, a motorcycle mechanic named Amrozi, admitted that he bought the explosives and van used in the October 12 bombing, which killed more than 190. As many as 90 dead were Australians. Amrozi, 40, was taken before General Da’ai Bachtiar,...

Explicit warnings that the terrorist group Jemaah Islamiah would strike inside Indonesia and hit the United States and its allies at their "weak points" were reported to Australia just weeks before the Bali bombings. The warnings were blunt and the attacks were expected to coincide with the anniversary of the first day of the war in Afghanistan, October 7, says a senior Western diplomat based in Washington. That day was a Monday, and the Bali bombing happened the following Saturday night, October 12, when the nightclubs were packed. The diplomat told the Herald: "We knew it was going to be...

Police release pictures of six Bali bomb suspects Indonesian police have released photos and sketches of six more suspects in last month's bombings in Bali. They include the alleged leader of the group, who officers say learned how to make bombs during several visits to Afghanistan. Police also say the same group is responsible for an explosion near the honorary US consul in Bali minutes after the blasts at the Sari Club and Paddy's bar on October 12, which killed nearly 200 people. "We are confident they are still in Indonesia," said lead investigator Major General I Made Mangku Pastika....

JAKARTA, Indonesia, Nov. 17 — The Qaeda network that carried out the terrorist attack in Bali is responsible for past plots against the United States in Southeast Asia, and is now planning to strike at Western students at international schools in Jakarta, Western and Indonesian officials said today. The plan to attack the schools was uncovered in the last few days, and officials said the schools would be closed until at least Wednesday. Officials declined to say precisely how they had learned of the plot, but the United States and Australia have stepped up their electronic surveillance and intelligence gathering...