[link|http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2002/10/17/1034561266864.html|From The Melbourne Age & Also mentioned in SCMP]

Excerpted from 2nd half ...

Mr Suyatmo said the probe was focusing on a group of eight people - seven Indonesians and one foreigner - who were being "intensively questioned".

The Australian Federal Police are saying little about the inquiry for fear of offending their Indonesian counterparts.

No group has claimed responsibility for the blasts, but suspicion has fallen on Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda and an Indonesian-based group, Jemaah Islamiah, which some link to al Qaeda.

Mr Saaf said the explosives that demolished the Sari nightclub were packed into a Mitsubishi L300 van. "That car was left on the street. That is from analysis because there was no human flesh found inside it," he said.

Investigators have said the C4 plastic explosives that were used were not made in Indonesia.

An Indonesian newspaper reported yesterday that seven foreigners, led by a Yemeni and a Malaysian, masterminded and carried out the Bali bombings.

The foreign group, which entered the country through Semarang, the main city in central Java on October 10, also included a European and two with links to a series of bombings in the Philippines, the Jakarta Post said.

The group is believed to have prepared the explosives in Semarang before using them to blow up the two bars in Kuta.

The Jakarta Post said that among the clues gathered by the intelligence services were phone calls to the Middle East from a house in Surakarta, a city 80 kilometres south-east of Semarang.

Surakarta is one of the main bases of hardline Muslim groups.

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More murk for us to wade through ...

Doug M