JAKARTA, 9 August 2003 — The suspected suicide bomber who attacked the J.W. Marriott Hotel in Jakarta this week was recruited by the Al-Qaeda linked regional terror group Jemaah Islamiah, police said yesterday.
The statement is the latest indication that Jemaah Islamiah, which is accused of carrying out last year’s deadly nightclub bombings on the island of Bali, was also behind Tuesday’s blast, which killed 10 people and injured almost 150.
Two jailed Jemaah Islamiah members who were shown a photograph of the alleged bomber’s face identified him and admitted to having recruited him, said Indonesian chief of detectives Erwin Mappaseng.
The alleged bomber’s severed head was found at the site of the attack, police said. The two detainees identified him as Asmar Latin Sani, a 28-year-old man from the island of Sumatra.
“The two Jemaah Islamiah members recruited Asmar Latin Sani,” Mappaseng told reporters. “According to the two and Asmar’s brother, they identified the face on the severed head as Asmar, based on a scar on his left temple.”
Mappaseng identified the two Jemaah Islamiah operatives as Sardono Siliwangi and Mohammad Rais. He said they were arrested in June and accused of involvement in bombings and robberies on Sumatra, Indonesia’s westernmost island.
But in London, the Arabic daily Al-Quds Al-Arabi yesterday published extracts of a statement dated Aug. 5, 2003, from an Al-Qaeda linked terrorist cell called the Abu Hafs El-Masri brigades, claiming responsibility for the attack.
The newspaper said the brigades described the attack as “a strong slap in the face of America and its agents in Islamic Jakarta, which has been cursed by the dirty American and the bold and racist Australian presence.”
The statement, which was faxed to the newspaper Thursday, said: “The Mujahedeen were monitoring CIA agents who came to interrogate the Mujahedeen taken captive by the apostate Indonesian government.” This was in apparent reference to convicted Bali bomber Amrozi bin Nurhasyim and more than 30 others arrested for the Oct. 12, 2002, bombings, which killed 202 people.
It was not immediately known whether any American agents were inside the hotel at the time. Only one American, a woman from Maryland, was injured in the blast.
Al-Quds Al-Arabi said the attackers claimed they packed cars with explosives and parked them in front of the hotel. They set the timer of the explosives to detonate when the CIA officials entered the hotel, the paper said.
This seemed to contradict police statements here that said that Sani was likely to have been in the moving vehicle at the time of the blast.
