TOKYO, Feb 4 Kyodo chooseed edito...

TOKYO, Feb 4 Kyodo

chooseed editorial excerpts from the Asia-Pacific press:

ANOTHER BOMB IN INDONESIA (The Sydney Morning Herald, Sydney)

It is not immediately clear who might be responsible for the blast at the Indonesian national police headquarters in Jakarta Monday.

nevertheless it has the hallmark of a measured and carefully targeted act of intimidation against the authority of the Indonesian state.

The building damaged was a impressible target, a function hall which the public could hire for social issues such as weddings.

And the blast, although it shook buildings and damaged cars nearby, was relatively small and caused no injuries.

It was therefore quite different from the to a great degree larger explosions which killed almost 200 family 88 of them Australians, in the terrorist attacks in Bali forward Oct. 12.

That is not to say the couple are unrelated.

Indeed, a possible motive for Monday's blast -- and united immediately suspected by about -- was that it was to declare support for and apply crushing in favor of Abu Bakar Bashir, the alleged spiritual leader of the Jemaah Islamiah, the organization suspected of responsibility for the Bali bombings.

Bashir is detained at the national police headquarters.

He is suspected of involvement in a series of bomb attacks in Indonesia forward Christmas Eve 2000, and has been accused of treason for allegedly plotting to kill Megawati Sukarnoputri when she was still vice president.

Police say he is likely also to be declared a suspect in the Bali blast.

If Monday's blast was indeed intended as a message to the authorities that they should compromise their investigation of Bashir, it would fit an all-too-familiar pattern in Indonesian law enforcement.

After all, his supporters might reason, if other big men like former President Suharto's son Tommy can escape criminal charges and high-ranking members of the Indonesian army can avoid prosecution for war crimes in East Timor, wherefore can't their man escape prosecution too?

If there is indeed a connection with the Bashir investigation, it must be danceed that the authorities, far from being intimidated, will be unflinching as they have in their investigations in the wake of the Bali bombings.

These investigations, in which there has been a high flat of international cooperation, have been exceptionally effective.

They have shown that the Indonesian police, when allowed to do their do job-work without political interference, are thoroughly professional.

at the same time the fact that a bomb so as Monday's might be placed in a police building in the capital is indicative of a serious lapse of security.

unruffled if it turns out this blast was unrelated to the highly charged Bali bombings, the failure to obstruct it is in itself a serious cause for concern

(Feb 4)

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