JAKARTA - A Malaysian professor who built the bombs used in last year's devastating attack on Bali headed a 16-strong group which blasted a Jakarta hotel this month, Indonesia's detective chief said today.

Erwin Mappaseng said Azahari Husin is though both to have led the group and to have built the van bomb which killed 12 people and injured almost 150 at the Marriott hotel on Aug 5.

He confirmed that the Jemaah Islamiah (JI) terror network, believed linked to al-Qaeda, carried out the hotel attack. It is also blamed for the Bali attack which killed 202 people last October and a string of other bombings.

Mappaseng said 10 people have been arrested for the hotel blast, in which the van driver Asmar Latin Sani was killed.

Ten arrested

He released photos or sketches of Azahari and four others wanted for the hotel attack. They include its overall "controller" Noordin Muhammad Top, who is a Malaysian also wanted for the Bali blast, and an Indonesian called Tohir, who is believed directly involved in carrying out the attack.

Two others, who were not identified and described as "Mr X", had bought the van, Mappaseng said.

The van driver in the Marriott attack, an Indonesian called Asmar Latin Sani, was killed.

Ten people are already under arrest for involvement in planning the Marriott blast, including six who were detained before the attack for other offences and have since confessed their part in the hotel bombing.

Mappaseng had disclosed last week that prime Bali suspects including Azahari were also believed involved in the Marriott blast. At the time he did not identify Azahari, who remains at large, as the leader.

Mappaseng said the Jakarta hotel bombing had been planned since January and the bomb was assembled from the remnants of explosives and materials used in a series of bombings on Christmas Eve 2000.

A total of 19 people were killed in the bombings of churches and priests in several cities in Java and Sumatra on Christmas Eve that year. JI is also blamed for those attacks.

"We have arrested 10 people ... another, Asmar, is already dead," Mappaseng told a press conference, clarifying reports Sunday from the police chief that nine had been arrested for the Marriott attack.

"The controller, the leader, the bombmaker and the executor of this (bombing) group is already known," he added.

Money through Hambali

Asked whether the group is linked to JI, Mappaseng replied: "Yes, that is the group in general.

"Even though this is the same network, they have split in regions, and some have even been specially trained in Afghanistan and in Moro (in the southern Philippines)," the detective chief said.

He said not all group members were involved in deciding the targets and added that "they are not as organised as they used to be."

Mappaseng said six of those arrested were captured even before the hotel bombing.

They include Idris, who was arrested early in June as a key suspect in the Bali attack, and Toni Tagor. Tagor is suspected to have robbed a bank at Medan in North Sumatra and a money changer at Dumai in Riau to raise money for the operation.

An Indonesian called Hambali, one of the world's most wanted terrorists who was arrested in Thailand last week, is said to have been both a senior al-Qaeda operative and JI's operations chief.

He is is US custody at a secret location but Indonesian police say they want to question him.

Mappaseng said police are trying to cross-check information that Hambali had sent US$45,000 to fund bombings in Indonesia. He said the money was reportedly disbursed through an unidentified Malaysian national.

Time magazine, quoting a US intelligence official, said that earlier this year Hambali's former boss Khalid Shaikh Mohammed - once a top official in al-Qaeda and now in custody - had told interrogators he had given Hambali about US$50,000. His instructions were to "do something big".

The Indonesian detective chief also added police were still looking for a man called Zulkarnaen, who led a special force charged with attacks and has been wanted since the Bali bombing.

Foreign Minister Hasan Wirayuda said Monday that Indonesia hopes Hambali would eventually be handed over for trial. - AFP