Global swoop on Bali to find killers

By MATHEW DEARNALEY and ALAN PERROTT

Australian and American police have descended on Bali to hunt the killers of at least 180 nightclubbers, while New Zealand confines its contribution to medical assistance for now.

Holidaymakers returning to Australia from the Indonesian resort island are also being asked for holiday pictures and videos in a search for evidence of two bomb blasts which ripped the heart out of Bali's main tourist enclave of Kuta Beach.

A team of Australian federal police and intelligence agents arrived on Bali as Prime Minister John Howard urged Jakarta to accept outside help to stamp out terrorism.

United States Federal Bureau of Investigation agents have also landed there, following weeks of warnings from Washington of a "specific and credible" attack in Indonesia.

They are expected to be joined soon by British forensic and counter-terrorism experts.

This country's police have not yet been asked to seek potentially useful information from returning New Zealanders, as their Australian counterparts are doing at airports across the Tasman, although the first direct commercial flight from Bali to Auckland is not due until tomorrow.

Mr Howard was careful yesterday to smooth the way for his investigators.

He said he respected Indonesian sovereignty and understood Jakarta's sensitivities, but he spoke for a country which was "not only a neighbour but whose sons and daughters have died in this outrage".

It was important for people to understand that terrorism was not a problem confined to the Northern Hemisphere, he said.

"It's right on our doorstep and has claimed the lives of our young - we have a right and I have a duty to push upon and press upon the Indonesian Government the need for a co-operative effort in this region."

While information about the state of the inquiry was scanty last night, some Indonesian-language media said police had contacted an injured man who claimed to have parked a bomb-carrying vehicle. Since parking attendants commonly pounce on any car trying to park in Indonesian cities, it was possible the man met those who delivered at least one of the bombs.

Survivors report a blast in Paddys bar in downtown Kuta Beach about a minute before a much more powerful car bomb explosion which devastated the jam-packed Sari Bar just across the street and lit an inferno of fires over hundreds of metres.

Mr Howard's coaxing came as Bali's police chief, Brigadier Budi Setyawan, promised a stormy meeting of community and religious leaders that he would arrest the perpetrators within a month or fall on his sword.

"My resignation is my way of expressing my moral responsibility to the people of Bali," he said in answer to a demand that he step down immediately.

At the same time, one of the men named by Western media as being a prime suspect denied any involvement.

The radical cleric Abu Bakar Bashir, who leads the Jemaah Islamiyah, which aims to set up an Islamic state throughout Indonesia and Southeast Asia, said he had nothing to do with the blasts and accused the United States of being responsible.

He told the Indonesian news agency Antara that it would be impossible for Indonesians to carry out such a bombing because they could not get powerful explosives, therefore it must have been the work of foreigners.

Jemaah Islamiyah, which is believed to have links to al Qaeda, is opposed to the West and what it believes is the leniency of the Jakarta Government, pushing instead for the institution of strict Islamic law.

A team of Indonesian investigators, meanwhile, is preparing to leave for the US to question in custody an Arab man, Omar al-Faruq, alleged to be al Qaeda's senior representative for Southeast Asia.

Al-Faruq, an Iraqi citizen whom Indonesian intelligence agents arrested in June and handed to the US, has allegedly confessed to planning attacks against US embassies.

Bali messages

New Zealand travellers in Bali, and their families in New Zealand, can post messages on our Bali Messages page.

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

Pictures from the scene of the blast

Related links