Terrorist suspect Azahari Husin had strong links to suicide bombings at three restaurants in Bali last month, Indonesian police said for the first time yesterday, a day after the wanted Islamic militant was killed in a gunbattle.
After previously claiming progress in the latest Bali investigation was moving too slowly, the island's police chief said police had in fact identified the suicide bombers but kept the information secret as they zeroed in on Azahari.
In neighboring East Java Province on Wednesday, Azahari was killed either by police bullets or a bomb detonated by a fellow militant after their hideout in a small town was surrounded by crack anti-terrorism police.
"The dead ones whom we identified are related to Azahari's group. That's why we never disclosed it," General Made Mangku Pastika said.
In later comments, he added: "From the specifications of the bombs [in Bali], it is clear they were made by Azahari's group."
Police had previously said Azahari was one of their prime targets over the Oct. 1 Bali restaurants bombings, but had said they had no evidence linking him to the attacks, which killed 20 people. The bombers exploded devices concealed in backpacks.
Police say Azahari, a Malaysian, designed and supervised the making of the car bomb which caused the most damage in 2002 attacks on the resort island of Bali which killed 202 people.
He was also the suspected brains behind several other bomb attacks on Western targets in Indonesia and was the top bomb maker in Jemaah Islamiah, a shadowy network linked to al-Qaeda.
Speaking to reporters in Bangkok, Australian Federal Police Commissioner Mick Keelty said the identification of one of the Bali suicide bombers had led police to the house in East Java where Azahari had been holed up.
Pastika said the second Bali investigation had shown there were several places where Azahari could have been hiding.
Keelty said fragments of bombs used on Oct. 1 in Bali matched the type of technology in bombs located in a safe house in West Java after the bombing of the Australian Embassy in Jakarta last year, an attack also linked to Azahari.
"We would say there is a very, very distinct similarity betwen the two types of bombs. That is why we, and the Indonesians, link Azahari to the second Bali bombings," Keelty said.
Police shot and killed Azahari as he tried to detonate a suicide belt during a raid on his hide-out.
Police initially said Azahari blew himself up to avoid capture, but police chief General Sutanto told reporters yesterday he was shot by members of an elite anti-terror unit seconds before he had the chance to detonate his bomb.
Another wanted militant holed up with Azahari succeeded in setting off his device, however, sparking a massive explosion that ripped off the roof of their rented house.
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