Indonesian police arrest nine in hotel blast case

JAKARTA, Indonesia -- Investigators have arrested nine people in the Aug. 5 attack on the Marriott Hotel in Jakarta that killed 12 people and wounded nearly 150, the national police chief said Sunday.

Gen. Da'i Bachtiar said the nine suspects were picked up in separate raids over the past week. He gave no details on the arrests or the suspects.

He said the total number of suspects so far in the attack was 10, including the apparent suicide bomber, who police have identified as Asmar Latin Sani, based on body parts recovered after the blast.

Bachtiar's announcement came two days after the arrest in Thailand of Riduan Isamuddin, an Indonesian better known as Hambali who is the alleged mastermind of an al-Qaida campaign of bombings in Southeast Asia, including the Marriott blast and the Oct. 12 bombings of two nightclubs on Bali Island that killed 200 people.

Hambali heads the al-Qaida-linked terror group Jemaah Islamiyah, which is blamed for both attacks. He is now being interrogated by U.S. investigators in an undisclosed location.

On Sunday, Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra said a Hambali accomplice tried to scout the venue of an upcoming Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit that will be attended by President Bush and 20 other world leaders in October.

That reinforced investigators' suspicions that Jemaah Islamiyah was plotting an attack on the October summit.

Thaksin said Hambli also had his sights on American facilities in Thailand. "The result of investigations show that Mr. Hambali and his men also wanted to target U.S. interests here," Thaksin said without elaborating.

Thaksin said he did not expect revenge attacks against Thailand for the arrest. "But they surely have a lot of other targets to go first," he said, adding that the United States is a chief possibility.

Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri spoke with Bush on Sunday and asked that Indonesia be given access to Hambali because of his suspected involvement in the Indonesia blasts and earlier bombings.

"We must have priority" in access to Hambali "because of his link with the investigation of various cases here," Foreign Minister Hasan Wirayuda said Sunday.

White House press secretary Scott McClellan said Bush and Megawati agreed on the "importance of sharing information" from Hambali's U.S.-led interrogation.

Sunday was Indonesia's independence day, and there were intelligence reports that attacks may have been planned. The reports said militants might strike places where foreigners gather, and police backed by soldiers guarded international hotels, shopping malls, bars, Christian churches and the offices of foreign companies.