The police have only identified one of the attackers as 'N' and have not given further details. But MetroTV, a private station, went further and named a suspect as a man named Nurhasbi whose family said he had not returned home and is not contactable by telephone. -- PHOTO: AFP
JAKARTA - INDONESIAN police on Monday were trying to rebuild the face on a severed head found at the scene of deadly hotel blasts in Jakarta in an attempt to identify one of two suspected suicide bombers.
The grisly forensic work could provide a key breakthrough in the investigation into Friday's twin suicide attacks on the luxury JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotels, which killed up to nine people including two militants.
One of the bombers apparently targeted a regular weekly business breakfast gathering of some of Jakarta's most influential foreigners at the Marriott, killing three Australians including a diplomat, a company executive from New Zealand and at least one Indonesian.
More than 53 people were injured in the blasts, which officials suspect were the work of regional Islamist network Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), responsible for the 2002 Bali attacks and dozens of other bombings since the late 1990s.
Unconfirmed reports in the Indonesian media said police believed one of the bombers was a student of a radical Islamic school in Solo, Central Java, which has produced some of JI's most committed cadres. Several reports identified the bomber seen in grainy security camera footage at the Marriott shortly before the blast as Nur Hasbi, alias Nurdin Aziz or Nur Sahid, a follower of Malaysian-born JI faction leader Noordin Mohammad Top.
Police have reportedly gone to Hasbi's family home to collect DNA samples, but police would not confirm this. Senior anti-terrorist officials have said the attacks look like the work of Noordin, who leads a violent splinter faction of JI that advocates the mass killing of Westerners as a legitimate means of 'holy war'.
One of Asia's most wanted men, Noordin is accused of masterminding bombings at the Jakarta Marriott in 2003, the Australian embassy in 2004 and Bali restaurants in 2005, which killed more than 40 people.
Police said an unexploded bomb left in a guest room of the JW Marriott resembled devices used in the 2002 Bali bombings, which killed 202 people, and one discovered in a recent anti-JI raid on an Islamic school in Central Java.
'They are from the same school. We found similar materials, similar tools, a similar method. That's their job, that's the same network, they are JI,' national police spokesman Nanan Soekarna said on Sunday.
He said investigators were reconstructing the mangled face on a head found at one of the hotels, with a view to creating an image that could be shown to witnesses.
Police have not confirmed that the Marriott bomber was a man wearing a backpack on his chest and dragging a suitcase who was caught by security cameras entering the dining area shortly before the blast. A security guard reportedly asked him where he was going and the man, who looked Indonesian, replied that he was going to meet his boss.
'I want to deliver what my boss ordered,' the man said, according to The Sydney Morning Herald newspaper.
Investigators say the bombers stayed in Room 1808 of the Marriott for two nights before the attacks and disguised themselves as guests. -- AFP
