The alleged field commander in last month's deadly Bali blasts has admitted an association with al-Qaeda's pointman in Southeast Asia, Indonesia's police chief said yesterday.
Imam Samudra, 40, was arrested last Thursday and, according to police, has confessed to carrying out the Oct. 12 nightclub blasts on Bali that killed more than 190 people.
Earlier, an intelligence official said Samudra was acting on orders from Riduan Isamuddin, known as Hambali, the alleged operations chief of the al-Qaeda-linked Southeast Asian terror group Jemaah Islamiyah.
"At the beginning he [Samudra] denied knowing Hambali, but when we showed him the evidence he finally admitted to knowing Hambali. He met him in Malaysia," National Police Chief General Da'i Bachtiar told reporters in the capital of Jakarta.
The revelation strengthens the assertion by intelligence officials both in Indonesia and other countries in the region that Jemaah Islamiyah was behind the Bali blasts, the worst terror act since the Sept. 11 attacks in the US last year.
Hambali has been implicated in operations ranging from logistical support for the Sept. 11 hijackers to bombings in Indonesia and the Philippines.
In Australia, the head of the country's police force said that up to five people linked to the bomb blasts on Bali had formed a "suicide pact."
Police commissioner Mick Keelty told Australian television that DNA samples had been taken from relatives of one suspected suicide bomber and were being analyzed in Canberra to help confirm whether the theory of a suicide attack was true.
Keelty told Channel Nine television that four people being held by Indonesian police in connection with the bombings were associates of Samudra.
"One of the more significant arrests that we confirmed last night was a person called Agus. Agus plus the person Iqbal were [among] a group of five who were committed to Samudra," Keelty said.
"These five were so committed to Samudra that they had in fact formed a suicide pact," he said.
Authorities are hoping that Samudra's capture will provide clues on the whereabouts of Hambali, who remains Southeast Asia's most-wanted man.
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