Indonesia today arrested the spiritual leader of a militant Islamic group suspected of involvement in last week's Bali nightclub bombings and blamed the attack on al Qaida and its allies in South-east Asia.
Defence Minister Matori Abdul Djalil stated in the most specific claim yet by Indonesian authorities that the cleric, Mr Abu Bakar Bashir, was linked to al Qaida and that his right-hand man, known as Hambali, was behind many of the country's terrorist bombings.
Mr Matori stopped short of accusing Mr Bashir of organising the Bali attacks, but said that it was logical to believe that Hambali, whose real name is Mr Riduan Isamuddin, helped orchestrate them and that Mr Bashir knew about them. The two men are accused of being leaders of Jemaah Islamiyah, believed to be al Qaida's biggest ally in South-east Asia.
Hambali is one of the region's most-wanted figures. He is accused of arranging a meeting of two of the September 11th hijackers with other al-Qaida figures in Malaysia in January 2000 and of being behind an alleged plot to blow up the US Embassy and other Western targets in Singapore.
"Al Qaida and its internal network is behind this Bali bomb blast," Mr Matori told a news conference in Bali, a week after bombs tore through a nightclub district and killed at least 183 people and injured more than 300, mostly foreign tourists.
AFP