By Jerry Norton
Website tips on the best ways to attack the United States embassy and movements by suspected members of violent Islamic groups were factors in the closure of U.S. diplomatic facilities in Indonesia, experts said on Friday.
When the closures were announced on Thursday, an embassy statement referred to terrorist threats without offering details. An embassy spokesman has declined to elaborate, but the facilities will be closed until further notice.
A New York Times report attributed the closings to the appearance on a militant Web Site of a diagram of the embassy, showing the location of the ambassador's office and other sites, and advising, in the Indonesian language, on the most effective means to attack the sprawling low-rise complex.
The Web Site posting "obviously caused the embassy enough concern to justify them closing," a Western security expert based in Indonesia told Reuters.
Jakarta police spokesman Tjiptono said the closure "was because we had received information on the movement of Azahari (bin Husin) and Noordin M. Top ... and the movement of their men in the capital."
Police say Azahari and Top, both Malaysians, are among the masterminds behind a spate of bombings in Indonesia and are key members of Jemaah Islamiah, a group seen as the regional arm of al Qaeda.
Attacks against Western targets in Indonesia blamed on Jemaah Islamiah include blasts at Bali nightclubs in October 2002 that killed 202 people, mostly foreigners, and one last September outside the Australian embassy in Jakarta that killed 10.
National police chief Da'i Bachtiar linked the Jemaah Islamiah fugitives with the embassy diagram.
"Our investigation on the Azahari group ... prompts an analysis that there has been communication among this group as a preparation to conduct another attack. From that analysis, there is information or a picture that refers to a map of the U.S. embassy in Jakarta. Probably, this is what the U.S. authorities thought as a plan to attack the embassy," he told reporters.
But he also suggested the development could be a diversion.
"This can be a trick. Why attack a target so openly like that and create concern?"
A second Western security expert suggested the U.S. facility closures, which included consulates in Bali and Surabaya and an office in Medan, reflected several factors.
"It looks like there's sort of a whole string of things ... converging at the same time," said Ken Conboy, country manager at Risk Management Advisory in Indonesia.
Aside from the Jemaah Islamiah movements and diagram, which he considered "rather amateurish," he cited the recent Newsweek magazine article alleging U.S. military abuse of the Koran.
The article, subsequently retracted, "did generate an awful lot of tension. It got people out in the streets."
A visit to Washington this week by Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and reports Indonesians trained in violent tactics by Muslim militants in the Philippines had returned were other concerns, Conboy said.
In addition, he added "there's the fact that Jemaah Islamiah averages about a strike a year, and it's been about eight months since the last one, so that's more than enough time for them to plan another."
The other Western security expert expressed similar sentiments, saying it is likely "a matter of when rather than if" another attack will come.
(With additional reporting by Telly Nathalia)
Copyright 2005 Reuters Limited.
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