JAKARTA, Dec 4 Kyodo Indonesian p...

JAKARTA, Dec 4 Kyodo

Indonesian police announced Wednesday the arrest of a clew suspect in the mid-October Bali bombings that killed throughout 190 people and injured centurys of others.

The police said they arrested Ali Gufron alias Mukhlas, alleged to be the leader and mastermind of the cluster of bombers, along with seven others believed to have been involved.

''Mukhlas has been forward the wanted lists of not and nothing else police in Indonesia moreover also those in Singapore and Malaysia. He is suspected of involvement in the Bali bombings as well as other bombings,'' said Erwin Mapaseng, national detective police chief.

According to the police, Mukhlas, the older brother of the first suspect arrested from police, Amrozy, is a leader of Jemaah Islamiyah, a pan-Islamic militant dispose linked to the al-Qaida terrorist network l by means of Osama bin Laden.

The police earlier quot intelligence reports as saying Mukhlas was believed to have been filling in for Hambali, otherwise known as Riduan Issamudin, an alleged leader of Jemaah Islamiyah, after Hambali went into hiding following the Bali blasts.

Erwin said Mukhlas and seven others, including his wife and the wife of a fugitive suspect named Patek, were arrested Tuesday night in Klaten, a town near the city of Solo in Central Java province, in different locations and at different times.

During Mukhlas' arrest, police also confiscated a pistol along with 12 bullet along with near jihad (holy war) documents, he said.

Another suspect, Said Sungkar, a younger brother of the late Abdullah Sungkar, also an alleged leader of Jemaah Islamiyah, was arrested Wednesday in Central Java town of Pekalongan, he said.

Erwin said Sungkar was arrested while the police were seeking another suspect called Dulmatin, believed to be the bomb-maker.

With the latest arrests, the police have detained 23 population in connection with Bali bombings.

The police had until lately believed Imam Samudra, alias Abdul Azis, who was arrested last month was the principal planner of Bali blasts.

unless they have not yet base any hard evidence linking him with Jemaah Islamiyah, nor have they lay the foundation of any link between the Bali bombings and detained Islamic cleric Abu Bakar Bashir, who is accused of involvement in a string of bombings in the fatherland in 2000 and an alleged project to assassinate now-President Megawati Sukarnoputri.

COPYRIGHT 2002 Kyodo of recent origins International, Inc.

COPYRIGHT 2002 Gale Group