Militants behind the hotel bombings in Jakarta also planned to use snipers to attack Barack Obama’s convoy, according to an intelligence expert.

A link between the suicide bombings at the JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotels on July 17, which killed nine people and wounded 53, and funding from a group linked to al-Qaeda is also being investigated, Dynno Chressbon, from the Centre for Intelligence and National Security, said.

He said that two of the four wanted suspects, Ario Sudarso and Mohamad Syahrir, had been trained for an attack on Mr Obama, who is expected to visit Indonesia before the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation summit in Singapore in November.

“For Obama, they planned to attack the convoy around the airport using MK-IIIs,” he said, referring to a Russian-made sniper rifle that he said was used by the Taleban in Afghanistan and in Muslim conflict areas in the Philippines.

An Indonesian police spokesman could not be reached for comment yesterday, but the sniper plot and a thwarted plot to attack Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, the Indonesian President, indicate the scale of the ambitions of Indonesian militants may be higher than first thought.

The alleged snipers were from a group called the Indonesian Islamic State, which has a training camp in the restive southern Philippines and received support from a group headed by the Malaysian-born militant Noordin Mohammad Top, Mr Chressbon said.

Mr Top is believed to be the mastermind behind the hotel attacks, which killed nine people and wounded 53.

Police have arrested at least five people believed to be connected to the bombings and three others have been killed during raids.

A possible al-Qaeda connection to the hotel attacks was being investigated, after two men believed to be from Yemen had stayed at the Marriott at the same time as an Indonesian called Syaifudin Zuhri bin Djaelani Irsyad, who is believed to have recruited the suicide bombers.

The men claimed to be airline crew when they stayed in the Marriott, but police suspect that they were involved in the plot.

“They booked and said they were Yemen Airways staff,” Mr Chressbon said, adding that the airline said its staff did not use the Marriott for stopovers.

Ansyaad Mbai, head of the anti-terrorism desk at Indonesia’s Security Ministry, said that police were trying to confirm a link between the men and the attacks.

“Of course, they have suspicions into this but it cannot be confirmed yet so it’s impossible for them to say,” he said.

(Reuters)

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