Indonesia Scrutinized In Wake Of Blasts

International pressure for Indonesia to crack down on al Qaeda terrorists and local allies blamed for the Bali nightclub bombing intensified Tuesday, while the accused ringleader of an extremist network said he would submit to police questioning.

Australia's Foreign Minister Alexander Downer urged Jakarta to allow an international investigation into the Saturday night attack that killed nearly 200 people at a Bali island club, mostly foreign tourists. Many were Australian; at least two Americans were among the dead.

One American made a timely escape from the Bali club. Steve Cabler is back recovering in Newport Beach, California, but he told The CBS News Early Show the horror of that blast in Bali has followed him home and it has been "a living hell."

He was sitting at the bar with his good friend Steve Webster after three weeks of surfing and golf. Webster is one of two Americans known killed in the blast.

Cabler described the terrifying scene and how the "roof fell on Webster."

He says he managed to scramble down the collapsed roof but found his escape route blocked by a fence.

The Californian collapsed this afternoon after running on little but adrenalin since Saturday night. He is recovering at an Orange County hospital.

Cabler left Bali Sunday, but his brother fears he may never be able to leave this behind.

"We're working very closely with Indonesia at the moment and it is very important we both hold exactly the same view about terrorism," said Downer, who arrived in Bali late Monday.

Speaking before Parliament, Australian Prime Minister John Howard said the Australian government would call on the United Nations to list Jemaah Islamiyah, a Southeast Asian group linked to Osama bin Laden's network, as a terrorist organization.

"There is, Mr. Speaker, mounting evidence of al Qaeda involvement together with Jemaah Islamiyah in the attack," Howard said.

"We will be moving to have Jemaah Islamiyah listed as a terrorist organization in the United Nations as soon as possible and have received indications from other countries ... that that move will be supported," he said.

Howard did not give any details of the evidence.

As CBS News Correspondent David Martin reports, last month U.S. intelligence picked up reports al Qaeda was planning attacks against western tourist destinations.

Bali was even mentioned as one of several places an attack might occur. The intelligence was relayed to the Indonesian government, but it did nothing to increase security in Bali.

The bombings followed a classic al Qaeda pattern of nearly simultaneous attacks against different targets, outside the nightclub, near the American consulate in Bali and at the Philippine consulate on another Indonesian island 1000 miles away.

Martinreports that the suspected ringleader a man who goes by the name Hambali and has ties to members of bin Laden's inner circle.

Last year Hambali directed video surveillance of U.S. military personnel and facilities in Singapore in preparation for attacks that were broken up before they could be carried out. He is believed to be hiding somewhere in Indonesia.

The U.N. Security Council, meanwhile, unanimously condemned the bombings, calling the attack an "act of international terrorism."

President Megawati Sukarnoputri is facing growing demands to arrest high-profile suspects whose continued freedom has astounded law enforcement officials in other countries. Whether she can do so without provoking extremists — and possibly further attacks — is an open question.

In Washington, President Bush had strong words for the Indonesian leader, saying he planned to talk to her about the need to crack down on terrorism.

"I hope I hear the resolve of a leader who recognizes that any time terrorists take hold in a country it's going to weaken the country itself," Mr. Bush said.

His cabinet followed suit.

"You cannot pretend it (terrorism) doesn't exist in your country," Secretary of State Colin Powell said at a news conference Tuesday. He said he hoped the attack "reinforces Indonesia's determination to deal with this kind of threat."

Powell had announced a $50 million, three-year anti-terrorism assistance package during a visit to Indonesia in August. The Bali bombing could prompt more U.S. help along those lines.

U.S. and Australian detectives joined the hunt for the killers and investigators from Scotland Yard and Germany said it might send experts.

Indonesian officials interrogated a security guard and another man Tuesday about the deadly nightclub bombing in Bali and said traces of C-4 plastic explosives were found at the scene of the blast.

Police said Tuesday they have questioned dozens of people in connection with Saturday's deadly blast, but that only two had information directly related to the attack.

Police spokesman Maj. Gen. Saleh Saaf said the two, including a security guard, saw a suspicious-looking man with a white plastic bag near the entrance to the Sari Club in Bali's Kuta resort just prior to the explosion.

The guard and another unidentified man were being "intensively interrogated," Saleh said. He denied reports that they had been arrested.

Bali police said that a month ago detectives questioned 10 Pakistani visitors about their visas, but that police no longer knew whether the men were still in Indonesia.

Suspicion has fallen on Jemaah Islamiyah, but the group's leader has denied involvement.

In a strange twist, a spokesman for Abu Bakar Bashir, the alleged spiritual head of Jemaah Islamiyah, said the cleric plans to submit to police questioning on Thursday.

The cleric's brother Umar Bashir said that the cleric, who has strongly denied any role in the Bali attack, wanted to discuss a defamation case he has launched against Time newsmagazine, which recently published allegations that implicated him in other terrorist activities.

But police say they had no immediate plans to interview Abu Bakar Bashir.

Indonesia has refused to arrest Bashir, saying they have no evidence against him.

Underlying the reluctance is a fear that arresting Bashir could provoke a backlash against the nascent democracy in the world's most populous Muslim nation, and that providing the military wider powers to deal with terrorism could enable the kinds of human rights abuses committed by the military under the reign of former dictator Suharto.

During Suharto's rule, more than a million civilians were killed by security forces.

Malaysia and Singapore have jailed scores of suspected Jemaah Islamiyah members accused of plotting to bomb the U.S. Embassy and other Western targets. The group has carried out bombings in the Philippines.

Jemaah Islamiyah is believed to have four tons of ammonium nitrate purchased by a suspected Malaysian member who the Malaysian government says allowed two of the Sept. 11 hijackers to use his apartment in 2000.

Indonesian stocks have plummeted since the attack and the currency has slumped despite central bank intervention.

Saturday's car bomb at the Sari nightclub and a smaller explosion nearby may do more than just harm Indonesia's tourism and economy. It may alter Indonesia's approach toward extremism.

Indonesia previously had insisted there was no threat of violent extremism on its soil, despite U.S. pressure to launch a crackdown and the discovery of an al Qaeda-linked terror network in neighboring Singapore and Malaysia in the wake of last year's Sept. 11 attacks.

A turnaround came Monday after a Cabinet meeting in Jakarta when Defense Minister Matori Abdul Djalil said: "We are sure al Qaeda is here." On Tuesday, he repeated his assertion that the bombing was linked to al Qaeda.

But Indonesia's Council of Ulemas, a group of Muslim clerics that has condemned the bombing, said Tuesday they had not seen evidence to support that claim. "We do not know where the defense minister got that information," said Amidhan, the council's chairman, who uses only one name.

Government officials said there were signs that terrorists were planning attacks against industrial sites, including liquefied natural gas plants and refineries.

Many U.S. diplomats prepared to depart after the State Department ordered nonessential embassy personnel and family members to leave Indonesia. Embassy spokesman Stanley Harsha said flights would start Wednesday.

But other embassies and foreign businesses — including American firms — said they would not follow suit.