Bomb-making video found in terrorist hideout
A video found in a terrorist hideout gives step-by-step instructions on how to make bombs, an indication that the extremist threat in Indonesia did not end with the death last week of one of Asia’s most-wanted militants.
The hour-long recording features an Indonesian instructor, careful not to show his face. Police believe copies have been distributed to other militants in the world’s most populous Muslim nation, said Djoko Susilo, a politician who was shown the video last night.
“I was shocked. The person has the ability to make very sophisticated bombs,” he said. “It revealed how far and how deep the terror network is.”
The video was found along with several other recordings last Wednesday in a hideout in central Java that police say was used by Noordin Mohamad Top, an alleged leader of the regional terror group Jemaah Islamiyah. Noordin fled the house before officers arrived, police say.
Hours later and hundreds of miles away, an elite anti-terror police raided the hideout of Azahari bin Husin – Noordin’s alleged accomplice and purportedly a key JI bomb-making expert.
Azahari was shot dead as he tried to detonate a suicide bomb around his waist, police said.
The raids were in connection with the investigation into last month’s triple suicide bombings on the resort island of Bali. The attacks – as well as the 2002 restaurant bombings on the same island – were blamed on Jemaah Islamiyah.
While Indonesia’s president and governments in the region – especially Australia, which lost 88 people in the 2002 attacks – hailed the death of Azahari, they were quick to note that several other top terrorists remained at large.
Susilo said he thought that anyone with a background in chemical or electrical engineering would be able to follow the instructions on the film. One of the devices featured was for a remote-control car bomb, he said.
A second film found at the house shows the three Bali attackers telling their families they would be going to heaven. It is believed to be the first time that suicide bombers in Indonesia have made a video before launching an attack.
The government plans to broadcast that film to convince sometime sceptical Indonesians that they are facing a home-grown terrorist threat.
Conspiracy theories claiming US or Israeli involvement in terror bombings in Indonesia to justify a crackdown on Islam are sometimes heard and given space in sections of the country’s media.
