'Hated Americans' target of Bali bombs

By MATHEW DEARNALEY and AGENCIES

Americans - not Australians or New Zealanders - were evidently the avowed targets of the Bali nightclub bombers who killed 184 people on the Indonesian resort island last month.

Indonesia's chief investigator says a man who has confessed to helping to build a bomb admitted blundering over the nationality of his victims.

The suspect, an East Javanese Muslim repairman in his 30s known only as Amrozi, allegedly told police he wanted to kill "as many Americans as possible".

He was "not very happy" when most of the dead turned out to be Australian, Major-General I Made Mangku Pastika said on a visit to Manila yesterday.

Three New Zealanders and up to 88 Australians were among those killed when two bombs destroyed the packed Sari Club and nearby Paddys Bar in Kuta Beach on October 12.

Only about three Americans are believed to have been killed, although many human remains have still to be identified.

If Amrozi was telling the truth, his confession discloses a woeful lack of research and local knowledge.

The Sari Club was a famous Australian haunt and a holidaying Hollywood casting director, Rosanna Klitzner, told the Herald from Bali the morning after the bombings that American tourists were sparse anyway after last year's terrorism attacks in the United States.

General Pastika said the explosive device used in the bombing included ammonium nitrate, a chemical also used for making commercial fertiliser, bought at a store in the East Javanese capital of Surabaya.

Amrozi was arrested on Tuesday at his village of Tenggulun, about 40km west of Surabaya, before being flown to Bali for interrogation. He admitted being the owner of a Mitsubishi L300 minivan used to place the explosives in the street between the two nightclubs.

The general said investigators had discovered where the terrorists built the bomb, but he would not elaborate.

"According to this suspect, he hates Americans. He wants to kill as many Americans as possible," said General Pastika, who is in the Philippines for a regional anti-terrorism conference.

He said the authorities were hunting between five and nine other suspects, all Indonesians and known to the police, who linked up in Malaysia to plan the attack.

He also confirmed that Amrozi met detained Muslim cleric Abu Bakar Bashir, suspected spiritual leader of the regional terrorist network Jemaah Islamiah (JI), at an Islamic boarding school in his village several months ago when Bashir gave a speech.

"He's one of the men who learned about jihad [holy war] from Bashir."

Amrozi also allegedly told the police he met JI's suspected operations chief, the elusive Hambali, several times but that the latter had since left Indonesia.

When police raided Amrozi's home, they found tickets to Manado, in Sulawesi, where he apparently planned to flee en route to the Muslim stronghold of Mindanao.

The Australian newspaper reports that police have taken metal scrapings from tools from Amrozi's shed, believing someone tried to obliterate the minivan's engine and chassis numbers.

But Mitsubishi analysts have helped police to determine the chassis number from remains of the van which were hurled into the second floor of a building some distance from the bomb blasts.

The paper noted evidence of amateur mechanical repairs, electrical components and a sewing Machine inside workshops next to a rural cottage where Amrozi lived with his parents.

Amrozi had a reputation as a self-taught repair-man, specialising in computers, mobile phones and cars.

Detectives seized brochures on Islamic holy wars in Bosnia and the Philippines, and also took a passport showing recent travels to Thailand and Malaysia, where neighbours said Amrozi's brother ran an Islamic school closed by the authorities in 1996.

One of Amrozi's friends is also believed to have been detained by the police in Surabaya.

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