Rory Callinan and wire services 09nov02

THE man who has allegedly admitted planting the bomb which killed 200 people in Bali last month has expressed remorse that so many Australians died.

The suspect, Amrozi, had said he wanted to "kill as many Americans as possible", chief Indonesian investigator I Made Mangku Pastika said.

Major General Pastika said Amrozi told police he was "not very happy because Australians were killed", instead of Americans.

The October 12 blast ripped through two nightclubs, killing 200 people. The Australian death toll stands at 59 with 27 missing. Up to nine Americans were killed.

Indonesian police have made rapid breakthroughs this week amid growing evidence that Al-Qaeda and Jemaah Islamiyah terror networks were involved.

CNN reported yesterday that the Al-Qaeda said it was behind the massacre.

The group led by Osama bin Laden said it had attacked "nightclubs and whorehouses in Indonesia" in a website message translated by the US television network.

The biggest breakthrough was the arrest of Amrozi, 35, a father of four who lives with his aged parents in a hut in the small village of Tenggulun in East Java.

As investigators interrogate Amrozi in a bid to find his accomplices, relatives and villagers spoke to The Courier-Mail about the man accused of helping to create the bombs and transporting at least one of them to the site.

His family said it was unbelievable that he could be involved. However, police found suspicious items inside his untidy workshop and house.

A 50kg bag of ammonium nitrate fertiliser, used in bombs, was visible inside the motorbike workshop.

And in a small room in his house beside his parents' property were the empty packages from three new mobile phones as well as parts from electronic equipment.

Amrozi's mother Tariyem, 65, would not believe her son could be involved.

"He has never done anything like this before and could not do it," she said. "He was a good boy, a quiet boy. His favourite thing is to build things, tinker with motors."

Indonesia's national police chief Da'i Bachtiar said on Thursday that Amrozi had admitted owning the Mitsubishi L300 van which was packed with explosives and detonated outside the Sari nightclub in Kuta Beach.

Police have also said that Amrozi had led them to a house where they found chemical residues related to the Bali bomb.

General Pastika said Amrozi had met Jemaah Islamiyah leader Abu Bakar Bashir and Islamic terrorist suspect Riduan Isamuddin, better known as Hambali.

But General Pastika, who is in the Philippines to attend a regional anti-terrorism conference, did not say if the police had found any direct link between Bashir and Hambali and the bomb attack.

General Pastika said Amrozi met Bashir at an Islamic boarding school in Java about six months ago, when the cleric gave a speech.

"He's (Amrozi) one of the men who learned about jihad from Bashir," he said.

Amrozi has also told police that he had met Hambali several times, but that Hambali was now out of Indonesia.

General Pastika said police were looking for between five and nine other suspects, all of them Indonesians.

Indonesian Defence Minister Matori Abdul Djalil said last night that Amrozi was definitely part of Bashir's Jemaah Islamiyah, the radical South-East Asian Islamic network that has been linked to the Al-Qaeda group.

Mr Djalil said he was convinced the bombings were the work of Al-Qaeda.

Police arrested Bashir, 64, on charges of involvement in the bombings of Christian churches three years ago.

The cleric is being held in a police hospital in Jakart

-- Anonymous, November 10, 2002