Dean Yates – Indonesia's intelligence and police services came under criticism on Tuesday after twin bomb attacks in a Christian town over the weekend, with some calls for the sacking of the police chief.
Police said they were still questioning witnesses over the blasts, which killed 22 people in the town of Tentena on eastern Sulawesi island. Authorities have blamed the bombings on Islamic militants, but denied speculation a suicide bomber was involved.
Indonesian police have arrested two men in the Tentena area who were carrying weapons but have not directly linked them to the Saturday morning attacks on a busy market, seen as an attempt to re-ignite violence in the region.
Tentena, 1,500 km northeast of Jakarta, is part of an area where three years of Muslim-Christian fighting killed 2,000 people until a peace deal was agreed in late 2001. The bombings were the worst in Indonesia since the 2002 Bali blasts.
Suripto, from the Prosperous Justice Party and a member of the parliamentary commission on defense and foreign affairs, told Reuters that Indonesia needed to revamp its intelligence agencies to combat the type of threats facing the country.
"Is this bombing going to be the last one? I'd say no unless our intelligence (agencies) are capable of identifying the intellectual actors and financial backers," Suripto said.
The speaker of parliament, Agung Laksono, said the attacks showed the government of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono had not lived up to its 2004 election promises to improve security, the Jakarta Post newspaper reported. Long-serving police chief, General Da'i Bachtiar, should be replaced, Laksono added.
The national intelligence agency, BIN, has said anti-terrorism laws introduced after the Bali bombings that killed 202 people were too weak to allow security agencies to catch suspects before they carry out atrocities.
Police have complained the laws do not give them enough power or political cover to detain suspects while avoiding criticism from Muslim organizations and human rights groups who are often suspicious of such investigations in light of Indonesia's authoritarian past.
Not a suicide bomber National police spokesman Aryanto Boedihardjo told a news conference that police were convinced the Tentena attacks were carried out by Islamic militants. The bombs were in cylinders and filled with nails and detonated with timers, he said. "There are a few groups using the same bomb materials but we don't know which group yet," he said without elaborating.
Asked about speculation a suicide bomber could have been involved, he said: "For the time being, my opinion says this was not a suicide bomb because it was not attached to a body." Indonesia has said the blasts bore the hallmarks of Jemaah Islamiah, a group linked to al Qaeda and blamed for a series of attacks on Western targets in Indonesia. Security experts have said homegrown Islamic radicals were more likely responsible.
About 85 percent of Indonesia's 220 million people are Muslim. But in some eastern parts, Christian and Muslim populations are about equal.
The Jakarta Post said public frustration was growing. "The twin blasts in Tentena are evidence that our police, intelligence and military forces are not winning the war against terrorists," it said in an editorial.
"It is bewildering how anyone can insist on staying on as the national police chief, for example, after having failed to protect innocent citizens from a series of major terrorist attacks that have claimed hundreds of lives."
On Tuesday, the United States opened all its four diplomatic missions in Indonesia after they were closed last Thursday because of an unspecified security threat.
[Additional reporting by Tomi Soetjipto and Telly Nathalia.]