An Indonesian militant charged in the 2002 Bali terrorist attacks told interrogators he spent weeks holed up in a rented house, painstakingly building a half-tonne bomb using household items including a rice ladle, a grocer’s scale and plastic bags.
A transcript of Umar Patek’s interrogation offers extraordinary detail of the Bali plot just days before Patek — a radical Islamist once Southeast Asia’s most-wanted bomb-making suspect — goes on trial in Jakarta for his alleged role in the nightclub attack that killed 202 people.
Patek, known as “Demolition Man” for his expertise with explosives, says he and other conspirators stashed the 700kg bomb in four filing cabinets, loaded them in a Mitsubishi L300 van along with a TNT vest bomb. The van was detonated outside two nightclubs on Bali’s famous Kuta beach on Oct. 12, 2002. Most of those killed were foreign tourists.
The suspect told police that a small explosion occurred when they were loading the bomb in a van, nearly derailing the plot, according to the transcript.
Although homemade bombs are easily assembled by militants all over the world, making such powerful devices as those used in Bali — and using such unsophisticated equipment — would have taken an enormous amount of care and expertise.
Patek, 45, goes on trial tomorrow following a nine-year flight from justice that took him from Indonesia to the Philippines to Pakistan, reportedly in pursuit of more terrorism opportunities.
He was finally caught in January last year, in the same Pakistani town where US Navy Seals would kill Osama bin Laden just a few months later. Patek was hiding out in a second-floor room in a house in Abbottabad, a US$1 million bounty on his head, when Pakistani security forces, acting on a tip from the CIA, burst in.
After a firefight that left Patek wounded, he was captured and extradited to Indonesia.
His capture was seen as a yardstick of the successes that Asian security forces, with US help, have achieved against Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), the al-Qaeda-linked regional terror group blamed for the Bali bombings and several other attacks in Indonesia. All its other leaders have been executed, killed by security forces, or are on death row.
Patek is charged with premeditated murder, hiding information about terrorism, illegal possession of explosives and conspiracy to commit terrorism, and now faces a possible death sentence as well. The indictment also accuses Patek of providing explosives for a string of Christmas Eve attacks on churches in 2000 that claimed 19 lives.
Interviews with intelligence officials in Indonesia and the Philippines, the interrogation report and other documents reveal the peripatetic life Patek led after the Bali attacks as he ranged widely and freely, often without passing through immigration checks, while allegedly passing along his bomb-making skills to other terrorists.
The interviewed officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to discuss intelligence matters with reporters.
Patek, whose real name is Hisyam bin Alizein, is the son of a goat meat trader. He went to computer school and learned English before being recruited into JI by Dulmatin, a fellow militant who was gunned down by Indonesian police in March 2010.
NO HUMAN ERROR: After the incident, the Coast Guard Administration said it would obtain uncrewed aerial vehicles and vessels to boost its detection capacity Authorities would improve border control to prevent unlawful entry into Taiwan’s waters and safeguard national security, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said yesterday after a Chinese man reached the nation’s coast on an inflatable boat, saying he “defected to freedom.” The man was found on a rubber boat when he was about to set foot on Taiwan at the estuary of Houkeng River (後坑溪) near Taiping Borough (太平) in New Taipei City’s Linkou District (林口), authorities said. The Coast Guard Administration’s (CGA) northern branch said it received a report at 6:30am yesterday morning from the New Taipei City Fire Department about a
IN BEIJING’S FAVOR: A China Coast Guard spokesperson said that the Chinese maritime police would continue to carry out law enforcement activities in waters it claims The Philippines withdrew its coast guard vessel from a South China Sea shoal that has recently been at the center of tensions with Beijing. BRP Teresa Magbanua “was compelled to return to port” from Sabina Shoal (Xianbin Shoal, 仙濱暗沙) due to bad weather, depleted supplies and the need to evacuate personnel requiring medical care, the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) spokesman Jay Tarriela said yesterday in a post on X. The Philippine vessel “will be in tiptop shape to resume her mission” after it has been resupplied and repaired, Philippine Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin, who heads the nation’s maritime council, said
REGIONAL STABILITY: Taipei thanked the Biden administration for authorizing its 16th sale of military goods and services to uphold Taiwan’s defense and safety The US Department of State has approved the sale of US$228 million of military goods and services to Taiwan, the US Department of Defense said on Monday. The state department “made a determination approving a possible Foreign Military Sale” to the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in the US for “return, repair and reshipment of spare parts and related equipment,” the defense department’s Defense Security Cooperation Agency said in a news release. Taiwan had requested the purchase of items and services which include the “return, repair and reshipment of classified and unclassified spare parts for aircraft and related equipment; US Government
More than 500 people on Saturday marched in New York in support of Taiwan’s entry to the UN, significantly more people than previous years. The march, coinciding with the ongoing 79th session of the UN General Assembly, comes close on the heels of growing international discourse regarding the meaning of UN Resolution 2758. Resolution 2758, adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1971, recognizes the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as the “only lawful representative of China.” It resulted in the Republic of China (ROC) losing its seat at the UN to the PRC. Taiwan has since been excluded from
RSS