Police - Suspect admits to using his van in Bali bomb

JAKARTA, Indonesia -- In the first major break in the inquiry into the Bali nightclub bombings, Indonesia's police chief said Thursday that a suspect in custody has admitted to taking part in the attack that killed nearly 200 people.

Police said they were looking into possible connections between the suspect and a regional terror group with links to al-Qaida.

The announcement came as President Megawati Sukarnoputri submitted a draft bill to parliament intended to replace an emergency anti-terrorist decree issued immediately after the Oct. 12 attack.

In another sign that her administration -- criticized for its lenient treatment of Islamic militants -- is getting tough with extremists, a notorious gang of religious vigilantes unexpectedly announced Thursday that it would disband.

Gaining momentum

The developments appeared to signal that the investigation was gaining momentum and offered hope the world's largest Muslim nation is making headway in its fight against terrorism.

Gen. Da'i Bachtiar, the national police commander, said the suspect, an Indonesian man identified only as Amrozi, owned the L300 Mitsubishi minivan laden with at least 110 pounds of explosives that blew up outside a packed nightclub on Bali.

"Amrozi was one of the main perpetrators in the Bali bombing," Bachtiar told a news conference, adding that Amrozi was part of a group that planned and carried out the attack.

Amrozi "used the vehicle to carry out the bombing in Bali," Bachtiar said. "He has disclosed many things and admitted his acts in Bali. Therefore we are pursing his companions."

Authorities said the manhunt was focusing on the eastern part of Indonesia's dominant island of Java, which is adjacent to Bali.

Bachtiar said Amrozi was the first of nearly two dozen people questioned in connection with the case to be formally declared a suspect. He remains in police custody.

A spokesman for a team of international investigators said earlier that Amrozi was detained in East Java province on Tuesday and then flown to Bali.

Amrozi was picked up at an Islamic boarding school in the town of Tenggulun, a television report said. The school's principal, Dzakaria, said Amrozi had attended a speech at the school by radical Islamic cleric Abu Bakar Bashir. Like many Indonesians, Dzakaria uses one name.

Police said they were looking into possible links between Amrozi and Bashir, the alleged spiritual leader of Jemaah Islamiyah, a regional terrorist group with links to al-Qaida seen as the prime suspect in the Bali bombings.

Dzakaria said Amrozi worked in Malaysia during the 1990s, a time when Bashir was living there in exile during the dictatorship of Indonesia's former ruler, Suharto.

Police recently arrested Bashir on charges of involvement in a string of church bombings three years ago. The 64-year-old cleric, who is being held in a police hospital in Jakarta, is not considered a suspect in the Bali attack.