Bali bombers map out a sinister trail

comments     Lawrence Bartlett     Published     Updated

Evidence from two self-confessed bombers has mapped out a sinister trail from the peace of a village and the piety of a rural school to the carnage of the Bali massacre.

Each new link that falls into place in the investigation of the Bali blast which killed more than 190 people leads back to the village, the school and relationships developed by Indonesians living in exile in Malaysia.

At least four of the main characters so far identified as central to the probe share the Malaysian connection, a bitter pill for the Dr Mahathir Mohamad-led government.

It was in Malaysia that the two who have admitted involvement in the Bali attack, Amrozi ( left ) and Imam Samudra, came in contact with people and projects linked to the Jemaah Islamiah (JI) terrorist organisation.

JI was allegedly being nurtured by two of their countrymen, Muslim clerics Riduan Isamuddin, alias Hambali, and Abu Bakar Bashir, who had fled the Indonesia of former dictator Suharto, seen by fundamentalists as an oppressor of Islam.

Hambali arrived in Malaysia in 1985, left to fight in the anti-Soviet campaign in Afghanistan from 1987 until 1991, and returned to settle in the quiet village of Sungai Manggis about an hour's drive from the capital Kuala Lumpur.

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