WASHINGTON - The bombings of a popular nightclub
strip in the Indonesian resort island of Bali were conducted by
a "sophisticated" terrorist group because of the large amount
of high explosives used and the coordination of the attacks, a
U.S. intelligence official said on Monday.
That is why U.S. intelligence agencies believe the Saturday
night bombings of an area frequented by foreign tourists was
probably the work of a group linked to al Qaeda which would
have the capability of striking that type of blow. More than
180 people were killed in the attacks.
"We haven't come to any final conclusions, but it's clearly
the work of a sophisticated terrorist organization of which
there are only a few, there are some in that region that are
associated with al Qaeda like JI (Jemaah Islamiah)," a U.S.
intelligence official told Reuters.
"There were near simultaneous explosions designed to
inflict the greatest amount of casualties on innocent people,"
the official said.
Al Qaeda has been blamed for coordinated attacks against
Western targets such as the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in
Tanzania and Kenya, and the Sept. 11, 2001, suicide attacks
that used four hijacked planes as weapons.
The network has also been linked to the USS Cole bombing in
2000 when a small boat carrying explosives blew up alongside
the U.S. destroyer off Yemen, gouging a huge hole in its side.
U.S. intelligence agencies are also analyzing whether the
Bali bombings were linked in some way to recent shooting deaths
of U.S. Marines in Kuwait and an explosion at a French tanker
off the coast of Yemen.
The speculation was that they could all be the work of
independent terror cells responding to a call by al Qaeda
leaders for increased action, officials said.
Qatar's al Jazeera television has recently broadcast
audiotapes of Osama bin Laden and his top lieutenant Ayman
al-Zawahri, as well as a statement the station said was faxed
that carried bin Laden's signature. The messages called on
Muslims to conduct war against the United States and Israel.
U.S. intelligence officials said the authenticity of the
latest reported bin Laden statement had not been determined.
U.S. intelligence agencies had earlier determined the
audiotapes were probably genuine. The one by Zawahri was made
in recent months, but the time frame for the one made by bin
Laden could not be determined, they said.
The al Qaeda messages broadcast on Jazeera, along with
other electronic communications picked up by U.S. intelligence
agencies, have shown the type of increased "chatter" among
terrorist suspects that have preceded past attacks, said Sen.
Richard Shelby, an Alabama Republican.
"Most of the time there have been terrorist attacks
immediately after a lot of signal traffic," Shelby, vice
chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said.
That happened before the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in
Africa, the USS Cole attack and the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on
the United States, he said.
"These are not isolated incidents," Shelby said of the
recent attacks in Bali, Kuwait and Yemen. "They are measured,
they are planned, they are part of the terrorist attacks, and
there will be more," he told Reuters.