Assuming they’ve got the right guy, the reported confession by one of the Bali bomb suspects is very good news and not only for the obvious reason that these killers must be brought to justice. Success in the hunt for the bombers will help to short-circuit the rising tension between Australia and Indonesia and lay the groundwork for the cooperation needed to beat Islamist terrorism in the region.
On our side of the water, all the people who have been saying that Indonesia is too corrupt and vicious to be any use to us will have their position undercut by a successful investigation, trial and conviction. On the Indonesian side, the same process will help to discredit conspiracy theories about the bombing and will also discredit any groups with whom the bombers were associated, whether or not it can be shown they were acting directly under orders. There are already reports tying the suspect, named only as ‘Amrozi’ to Bashir and JI.
The nightmare scenario is that the Indonesians have extracted a confession from the wrong guy. It’s happened before, and not only in places like Indonesia when police are under pressure to produce a result. Still the circumstantial evidence looks pretty good.
One thing that’s surprising, and a bit worrying, is that Amrozi has been named as the owner of the minivan used in the attack. Given that all other aspects of the operation seem to have been viciously professional, you would expect the bombers would have used stolen vehicles.
Update: According to CNN, Al Qaeda has admitted (or claimed) responsibility for the Bali bombing. I’m not sure what to make of the timing of this admission, which was posted after the reported confession discussed above.