INDON POLICE LINKED AL-QAEDA TO JULY 17 BOMBING

Indonesian police believed that funds that financed the July 17 bombings in Jakarta's lavish J.W. Marriott and Ritz Carlton hotels were directly from the Middle East in June and linked to Al-Qaeda, the Jakarta Globe reported here on Tuesday.

• Citing to information disclosed by a senior member of police's anti-terror squad who asked for anonymity, the police failed to apprehend the courier, who was believed to have hand-carried the cash as he returned to his home country shortly after the bomb exploded, it reported.
• The source said that the courier had a link to Al-Qaeda terrorist network and that he channeled the cash through a subordinate of fugitive terrorist leader Noordin M. Top, it said.
• According to the source the courier came to Jakarta at the invitation of a former Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) member living in Jakarta and stayed in a rented house in Bekasi, eastern Jakarta area.
• Due to the police's failure to prove that the money brought in by the courier were used to finance the bombings on July 17, the police failed to arrest both the courier and the inviter.
• The source, however, said that Indonesian police are working closely with their foreign counterparts to unveil the terror network and capture the foreign suspects.
• Al-Qaeda was also believed to have provided funds for the 2002 Bali bombing that killed hundreds of westerners and domestic tourists.
• Ali Ghufron, a Jamaah Islamiyah terrorist group who perpetrated the 2002 Bali bombing said that his terrorist cell group received the funds to finance the bomb attack in Bali from Riduan Isamuddin,or known as Hambali.
• Ali, who was executed to death last year, told the police that Hambali received the funds from Al-Qaeda leader, Osama ben Laden. Hambali is now detained in maximum security U.S. penitentiary.

Source: Xinhua