Bali Bombers Targeted Americans

Even though Australians account for the largest number of victims of the Bali bombings, the real target was Americans, Maj. Gen. I Made Mangku Pastika, the top investigator, told reporters at a security conference in the Philippines.

Pastika said the chief suspect arrested so far, identified only as Amrozi, told interrogators that the plotters regretted that they killed many more Australians.

According to an account in Saturday's New York Times, Pastika, Amrozi told his questioners: "They wanted to kill as many Americans as possible. They hate Americans. They tried to find where the Americans are gathering."

They believed that Bali was a haunt of Americans, and afterward were "not happy because Australians were killed in big numbers," Pastika said. The attackers sought revenge for "what Americans have done to Muslims," he added.

The Times quotes a senior Western diplomat as saying all indicators from the investigation of the Oct. 12 bombings, which killed 180 people, including 87 Australians and 7 Americans, were "pointing in the direction" of the operational leader for Al Qaeda in southeast Asia being the mastermind of the blast.

The man, an Indonesian known as Hambali, is the object of a manhunt all over southeastern Asia, the Times says.

Police on Saturday said they were searching for at least two of Amrozi's brothers.

Indonesian intelligence officials said Saturday that Amrozi visited Afghanistan and may have met with members of an al Qaeda-linked Southeast Asian terrorist group while in Malaysia.

Also on Saturday, police declared the owner of a chemical shop detained Friday in connection with the blasts a suspect for selling bomb-making materials. But it was not immediately clear whether those materials were connected to the Bali bombings.

The developments marked another harried day in the fast-moving investigation. Police across Indonesia were looking for as many as 10 other suspects. And for a second day, they raided homes in the village of Tenggulun in East Java province where Amrozi lived.

Officials said Amrozi has admitted he owned the L300 Mitsubishi minivan laden with at least 110 pounds of explosives that blew up outside a packed nightclub on the resort island of Bali.

He also said he was a field commander of the group that planted the bombs outside the Sari Club and inside Paddy's bar that killed nearly 200 people.

Since his arrest on Tuesday, police said Amrozi confessed to involvement in a string of terror attacks in Indonesia including the Jakarta Stock Exchange bombing in 2000 that killed 15 people.

He also acknowledged meeting the alleged leaders of a Jemaah Islamiyah, an al Qaeda-linked terror network whose alleged aim is to form a pan-Islamic state in Southeast Asia.

Jemaah Islamiyah has been increasingly blamed for the Bali blasts.

Intelligence officials in Bali said on condition of anonymity that Amrozi said he visited a number of Asian countries including Afghanistan. It was not immediately clear when or why Amrozi visited Afghanistan.

But Maj. Gen. I Made Mangku Pastika, the top investigator, said last week he thought Indonesians trained in Afghanistan or Libya were behind the bombings, noting the planning and expertise required to carry out the attacks.

Pastika has not said who Amrozi was working for. But he has said his younger brother, identified as Mukhlas, was a member of Jemaah Islamiyah.

On Friday, police spokesman Brig. Gen. Edward Aritonang said Amrozi admitted that he knows the terror group's alleged leaders: Riduan Isamudin - also known as Hambali - and Abu Bakar Bashir.

Police arrested the 64-year-old Bashir, Jemaah Islamiyah's alleged spiritual leader, on charges of involvement in a string of church bombings three years ago. So far, police have not listed him as a suspect in the Bali attacks.

The intelligence officials said Amrozi admitted under interrogation that he met personally with the two clerics but they did not say when or where he met them.

Neighbors of Amrozi said he went to Malaysia in the late 1980s to work in construction and tourism. But the intelligence sources said they believe he met Jemaah Islamiyah members while he was there.

In their investigation, police have detained more than two dozen people for questioning, including the principal of Tenggulun's Al Islam school, where Amrozi was a frequent visitor, and the owner of the shop in Surabaya, East Java's capital, where Amrozi allegedly bought chemicals.

East Java police have now named the shop owner, Silvestor Tendean, a suspect for selling explosives - some of which may have been used on Bali, Aritonang said.

But Aritonang said the explosives have not been definitely linked to the bombs in Bali, and Tendean has not been named a suspect in the bombings.

Among the chemicals possibly used in the blasts were TNT, RDX, HMX, nitrate, titrate and chlorate, police said.

Pastika said detectives believe that six to 10 people were involved in the two simultaneous bombs that turned one of Asia's most frequented tourist destinations into an inferno. He said police have the names and identities of the suspects.

Police on Friday raided three homes of Amrozi's friends and relatives in Tenggulun and raided at least two more on Saturday. Officers said they were looking for explosives as well as two of Amrozi's brothers whom they believe played a part in the bombings.

They found neither, with villagers saying the brothers have fled.

In Bali, police searched a third-floor apartment in a residential neighborhood in Denpasar that Amrozi supposedly rented for two days. They said they found fingerprints that matched Amrozi's and residue of explosives they believed were used in the blasts.