Three suspects sought in Bali bombings

KUTA, Indonesia -- Bali port police hunted yesterday for three men in separate vehicles who reportedly raced from the scene of suicide bombings Saturday night on Bali and may now be trying to leave by sea.

Despite beefed up security measures since the attacks that killed at least 22 people, police said Bali's 330-mile coastline remains vulnerable to terrorists who could smuggle in explosives or escape undetected.

''Entering Bali is relatively easy," Bali Police Chief I Made Pastika said on Sunday. ''The beaches of Bali are pretty long, so it is not difficult," Pastika added. ''It is impossible that all people going through [the port of] Gilimanuk are carefully checked."

On Saturday night, shortly after the three nearly simultaneous attacks, Gilimanuk Port Police Chief Agung Sukasana said he was asked by Bali police to be on alert for three men, whose names were Abdullah, Abdul Ghani, and Dedy Mizwar. They were reported to have fled in a silver Suzuki minivan, a green Toyota minivan and a white Suzuki minivan, he said. He did not know which men were at which sites or in which vehicles.

He said that he was given no physical description or other identifying data -- just the men's names, which are common enough in Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim country.

Since the attacks, Sukasana said, port police have been checking every passenger's name against a police list of terrorists, and recording vehicle license plate numbers. The police force has been strengthened from 37 to 60, including intelligence officers and detectives, he said.

But Gilimanuk's geographical position makes it an ideal entry point to Bali for militants on Java, Indonesia's main island. Gilimanuk is only seven miles and a 40-minute ferry ride from the coast of East Java, a province that produced many of the militants who staged the 2002 Bali nightclub bombings, suicide attacks that killed 202 people, mostly foreign tourists.

Every day, 3,000 people enter and leave Bali via Gilimanuk, with up to 4,000 on national or religious holidays, such as Wednesday's Galungan, a Balinese observance that honors ancestors, and up to 6,000 during the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, Sukasana said.

At least 1,000 vehicles, from motorbikes to large buses, make the crossing daily, he noted.

To monitor all the traffic, the port police have six metal detectors, not all of which work all the time. ''We cannot use the devices to their maximum effectiveness because we're talking about thousands of people," he said. ''If we delay people or vehicles too long, it will create long queues."

They have one hand-held detector for trace explosives, but he called it useless, because it jams.

And of three passenger ferry ports on Bali, he said, Gilimanuk, with its antiquated terminal, has the best security.

Police have described evidence recovered at the three blast sites, including 9-volt batteries, electrical wires and, at one site, a plastic food container. They also found pieces of black bags at two sites, said National Police spokesman Brigadier General Soenarko, who goes by one name.

The materials are virtually identical to the ''Tupperware bombs" that fugitive Malaysian bomb-making expert Azahari Husin designed and trained others to build, said Ken Conboy, author of the upcoming book, ''The Second Front," about the militant group Jemaah Islamiyah. Last October, after a bomb accidentally detonated, police raided a hideout in West Java province, recovering at least two bombs made of explosives and ball bearings, Conboy said.

Material from the Associated Press was included in this report.