United in search for truth

By GREG ANSLEY

There is a grim unity in the vast hole where Paddys bar and the Sari used to be.

Beneath the relentless tropical sun, police and forensic experts from four nations are pulling apart the rubble of Saturday night's terrorist attack in a bid to find a trail to the bombers.

Today security is, if anything, even tighter.

The blast zone is quarantined by cordons of armed police, traffic diverted in nightmare detours through Kuta's maze of narrow streets and lanes, and the cordons have sealed strips of road spoking out from Ground Zero.

The hunt for evidence runs back from the street across disintegrated buildings and pummelled cars, and into the vast crater where the terrorists set two bombs, a small device to panic people into the open and a second, immensely more powerful, explosive.

Inside this area are the khaki uniforms of Indonesian police, the dark blue overalls and checkered hats of the Australian Federal Police, the lighter blue baseball caps of the American Bureau of Federal Investigation, and the uniforms of Britain's Scotland Yard.

Investigators from France, Germany and Sweden are also involved in the hunt. Australia has negotiated to be in joint charge of the operation with Indonesia.

No one makes any secret that this is a global hunt for international terrorists.

The investigators started with enormous difficulties.

The Western investigators were clearly frustrated by the failings of local police who had neither the experience nor the resources to cope with an outrage Bali was certain would never be inflicted upon it.

For the first 24 hours they ran a flimsy single tape around the area and maintained a light guard who allowed hundreds of people to walk through the site, potentially damaging, obscuring or destroying crucial leads.

But even if the Balinese police had acted faster and harder, the four-nation team would have still been met with an immense pile of rubble that had been seared by intense flame that would in itself have erased clues.

There was also the heartbreaking hunt for the dead: even now Red Cross teams wait to be summoned if searchers uncover the remains of further victims, which appears likely.

Concrete slabs must be jacked up and carted away. Chain gangs pass out large boulders of concrete, wooden beams, steel girders.

At each step, Western police service experts familiar with bombs, disasters and large crime scenes, sift through the debris for anything that can point to the bombers.

The Australians now have more than 30 forensic specialists, crime scene and post-bomb blast investigators, specialist victim identification officers and detectives in Bali.

Others have come from the FBI, steeled by September 11 and with a massive database on al Qaeda and other terrorist organisations, and from Scotland Yard, with anti-terrorist expertise honed by decades of IRA bombing.

In Australia, police have spoken to thousands of passengers on about 20 Qantas flights back from Bali, and sought photographs and videos from holidaymakers in the hope of finding some small clue.

Foreign intelligence services, including the American Central Intelligence Agency and the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, also have agents in Bali.

The popular view is that, if not al Qaeda itself, the bombers have links to Osama bin Laden through the ephemeral network that has associations with militant Muslim organisations in Indonesia and the Philippines.

Discoveries so far suggest this is a strong possibility.

The chief of Indonesia's National Intelligence Agency, A. M. Hendropriyono, has confirmed that investigators found traces of the powerful military plastic explosive C4, which can be stretched and kneaded into virtually any shape and readily stuck to most surfaces, in the car used for the bombing.

Hendropriyono also said the terrorist first detonated a small bomb near Paddys bar to panic nightclubbers into the street, where the car bomb exploded soon afterwards.

Bali messages and latest information on New Zealanders
New Zealand travellers in Bali, and their families around the world, can exchange news via our Bali Messages page. The page also contains lists of New Zealanders in Bali and their condition.

Foreign Affairs advice to New Zealanders

* Travellers should defer travel to Bali

* NZers in Bali should keep a low profile and remain calm

* Foreign Affairs Hotline: 0800 432 111

Feature: Bali bomb blast

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