Al Qaeda claims Bali bombs as its own

Al Qaeda has allegedly shown its hand for the first time in the Bali bombings, boasting of hitting "nightclubs and whorehouses" in Indonesia.

CNN said yesterday that it had translated the claim from a website the global terror network has used in the past to claim responsibility for attacks on a variety of targets.

The report comes as Indonesian police hunt up to 10 associates of an East Javanese Muslim man who they say has confessed to helping to build the Bali bombs. He claims the aim was to kill Americans rather than Australians or New Zealanders.

The al Nada website had been hacked by professed American patriots when the Weekend Herald checked it yesterday, and it was unclear where the message was.

But CNN translated a statement it attributed to al Qaeda that the group "has no qualms about attacking inside Arab and Islamic lands ... provided that the target belongs to the Jewish-Crusader alliance".

Indonesian police believe the Bali bombings have the hallmarks of attacks by the Jemaah Islamiyah regional terror network. They say the investigation has not yet established an al Qaeda link.

Police are trying to question Jemaah Islamiyah spiritual leader Abu Bakar Bashir over church bombings in 2000 and a plot to assassinate Megawati Sukarnoputri before she became President of Indonesia, although he is not a suspect in the Bali blasts.

But the Australian newspaper says the man held by Indonesian police has also confessed to a role in Jakarta bombings about which the police want to interrogate Bashir.

The newspaper says neighbours of the arrested man, a repair man in his 30s known as Amrozi, have confirmed that Bashir visited him at least three times in the past year.

Prime Minister Helen Clark, whose Government has followed Australia in designating Jemaah Islamiyah a terrorist organisation, said it was known that its members had trained at al Qaeda camps.

The claimed al Qaeda link to the Bali bombings reinforced the Government's determination "to play our part" against terrorism.

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