U.S. Toll In Bali Blasts Expected To Rise

U.S. officials said Wednesday they believed that the number of Americans killed in the weekend bombing of a nightclub on the resort island of Bali would climb to five or six.

"We believe there may be five to six American fatalities," said an official, who asked not to be named.

Two American deaths have so far been confirmed: Steven Brooks Webster of Huntington Beach, California; and Deborah Snodgrass, who had been living in Bali.

U.S. officials said four Americans were injured, and between one and four were missing.

No other names of Americans have been released, but family members identified Jake Young, a former University of Nebraska football player working in Hong Kong, as among the missing.

Also Wednesday, Indonesia pledged to press ahead with tough new anti-terror laws and formed an international investigative team to hunt for the culprits in the Bali nightclub bombing. The move comes after the nation was scolded internationally for ignoring demands that it crack down on terrorism.

But even as it announced the initiatives, Indonesia's resolve appeared to waver when its security minister claimed that Jemaah Islamiyah — an al Qaeda-linked Islamic extremist group identified by Australia and others as a likely culprit — does not even exist in Indonesia.

The spiritual head of Jemaah Islamiyah, meanwhile, denied the group existed at all, along with denying that al Qaeda was tied to the attack, which killed at least 183 people, most of them foreign tourists, and left hundreds more injured.

"There is no link between al Qaeda and the bomb blast," Muslim cleric Abu Bakar Bashir told reporters, calling the accusations "the invention of infidels."

Foreign Minister Hassan Wirayuda told reporters the government was working on giving President Megawati Sukarnoputri authority to impose, by decree, a long-stalled anti-terrorism law. The law has been stuck in Parliament for months.

"We are working on that," Wirayuda said after a meeting with Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer. There was no indication when a decree would be handed down, but Megawati would be expected to seek approval from parliamentary leaders before doing so.

Indonesia and Australia, which lost dozens of citizens in the explosion, have agreed to form a joint intelligence team in the wake of the blast and have invited other nations to join, Downer said.

Downer said officials still "don't have any hard evidence as to who is responsible" for the explosion.

The government is struggling to shake off the impression that it ignored months of warnings about terrorists being active here, particularly Jemaah Islamiyah, which wants to establish a pan-Islamic state in Southeast Asia.

But U.S. Ambassador Ralph C. Boyce labeled reports in the New York Times that said he warned Megawati of an imminent attack the day before the Bali bombing as being "imprecise, to say the least." He did not elaborate.

Senior intelligence officials speaking on condition of anonymity said a former air force lieutenant colonel with a background in explosives had been questioned by intelligence officers after the bombing, and would be questioned Thursday by police.

But they denied he was a suspect or had confessed, as the Washington Post reported Wednesday on the Web site of the International Herald Tribune. The officer, who was let go from the air force for misconduct a year ago, lives in the area near the blast, and had been questioned because he'd rushed to the scene.

Suspicion in the blast has fallen heavily on Jemaah Islamiyah, which has been accused of plotting to attack the U.S. and other Western embassies in Singapore earlier this year. Malaysia and Singapore have arrested scores of suspected members.

But Security Minister Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono claimed Wednesday that "as an organization, Jemaah Islamiyah doesn't exist in Indonesia." He said, however, that it does exist in Singapore and Malaysia and that Indonesian citizens, including Bashir, "were the former leaders."

Foreign countries have repeatedly urged Indonesia to arrest Bashir, who runs an Islamic boarding school in Indonesia. He denies any involvement and the government has not moved against him, fearing a backlash by extremists.

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell added his voice Tuesday to calls for Indonesia take a harder line.

"You cannot pretend it doesn't exist in your country," Powell said.

Bashir was scheduled to submit to police questioning Wednesday and Thursday, at his own initiative, to press a libel suit against Time news magazine over an article that implicated him in terrorist activities.

Police did not confirm rampant rumors that he would be arrested.

"I have not heard that there is a warrant for my arrest," Bashir told The Associated Press. "The police have no basis for that arrest. It is like a witch hunt. They are cracking down on Muslim fundamentalists."

Bashir said that he had been summoned to appear before police Thursday to give evidence in the libel suit.

"I will not answer any questions about the Bali bombing," Bashir said. "It is not within the scope of the order that they gave me in that letter."

On Bali, police continued to interrogate two Indonesian men, neither of them Balinese, Bali Police Chief Budi Setiawan told a news conference. Police have said they were being "intensively interrogated," but denied reports they had been arrested. More than 50 people have been questioned in the investigation, he said.

The two men being extensively interrogated include a security guard and the brother of a man whose identification card was found at the blast scene.

Traces of the military explosive C-4 — a puttylike plastic explosive used in the attack two years ago on the USS Cole in Yemen - were found at the scene, National Police Chief Da'i Bachtiar said.

In August 2000, the home of the Philippine ambassador in Jakarta was bombed using similar materials. Philippine intelligence officials blamed that attack on Jemaah Islamiyah.

In past cases in Indonesia, whenever C-4 has been found in any bombing it has been traced to the military, raising speculation the explosive was bought or stolen from military stocks.