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US missions closed in Indonesia after threat
(Agencies)
Updated: 2005-05-26 18:08
JAKARTA - The United States closed all its diplomatic missions in Indonesia
on Thursday because of a security threat as police warned that Islamic militants
linked to al Qaeda were planning an attack on an unspecified target.
Police said they had strengthened protection at several other major
embassies after the United States closed its four missions in Indonesia until
further notice.
National police chief General Da'i Bachtiar said intelligence reports had
pointed to another strike.
"The analysis of intelligence shows to us that there are preparations being
made for another attack ... but the target is still uncertain. There has been
communication among them to conduct an attack," Bachtiar told reporters.
He was responding to questions about fugitive Malaysian bombmaker Azahari bin
Husin, one of the accused masterminds behind a spate of bombings in Indonesia
and a key member of Jemaah Islamiah, a group seen as the regional arm of al
Qaeda.
The U.S. embassy in Jakarta did not give details of the threat that prompted
the closure of its missions, but Indonesian Vice President Jusuf Kalla said it
had been spread by e-mail and cell phone.
"I have consulted with the security minister on what has happened ... This is
only information spreading through e-mail and cell phones and which was later
intercepted by American intelligence," Kalla told reporters without giving
details of the nature of the threat.
Jakarta police chief Firman Gani said police had reinforced security at the
embassies of Japan, Britain and Australia based on their own intelligence
reports.
Jemaah Islamiah has launched several bomb attacks in the world's most
populous Muslim nation in recent years, including one last September outside the
Australian embassy in Jakarta which killed 10 people. Azahari is a key suspect.
The closures of the American missions come during a high profile visit to the
United States by Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who has promised
to fight terrorism.
"The embassy reminds all Americans that the terrorist threat in Indonesia
remains high," the U.S. embassy said on its Web site (www.usembassyjakarta.org).
An embassy spokesman, Max Kwak, declined to elaborate.
FUGITIVE BOMBMAKER
Besides its heavily fortified embassy in central Jakarta, the United States
has consulates in the city of Surabaya in East Java province and on the resort
island of Bali. There is also a U.S. representative office in the city of Medan
in Sumatra.
Police armed with automatic weapons have been stationed outside the Jakarta
embassy for the past few years, along with cement barricades. Security on
Thursday appeared little changed.
On May 18, Australia warned travelers of possible suicide bombings in the
Indonesian capital after a warning was issued a day earlier by the Jakarta
Metropolitan Police.
The car bomb that exploded outside the Australian embassy in Jakarta on Sept.
9, 2004, also wounded more than 200 people, while 88 Australians were among the
202 killed in the Bali nightclub bombings in October 2002.
Dubbed the "Demolition Man" by Malaysian newspapers, Azahari is suspected of
being Jemaah Islamiah's top bomb maker. He is a former university lecturer and
gifted mathematician, whom police suspect of designing the bombs used in the
Bali attacks.
He is believed to be hiding in Indonesia, police have said.
The latest threat hurt Indonesia's rupiah currency, taking it past 9,500 to
the dollar, from 9,465 the previous day.
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