A team from the FBI has been brought in to assist with the investigation into the devastating terrorist attack in Bali.

The bomb blast ripped through a popular nightclub on Saturday night, killing nearly 200 people and injuring hundreds.

Indonesian police say they have the names of several people suspected of involvement in the attack, provided by people in the area.

Many of the foreign casualties were Australian, and in Australia, Prime Minister John Howard described the tragedy as "the nation's blackest day, since World War Two."

Can the terror attacks be stopped? How fearful are you of travelling abroad?

You put your questions to the BBC's security correspondent Frank Gardner, who has been covering the war on terror and its implications, in a live interactive forum.

Transcript

Newshost:
The idyllic holiday island of Bali was turned into a place of unthinkable terror at the weekend. Indonesian officials investigating Saturday's bomb attack on the island, which killed at least 188 people, say they have the names of several suspects.

The British Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, said the Bali attack has all the hallmarks of a vicious, evil terrorist organisation but he says it's too early to say whether or not it's linked to al-Qaeda.

Can international terrorism be stopped? How fearful are you of travelling abroad? With me to answer your questions, is the BBC's security correspondent, Frank Gardner.

Let's start with an e-mail from Ben in Singapore: What do you think the motivation was for these attacks? Isn't it paradoxical that it is most likely to be an Indonesian group who committed act against their own country?

Frank Gardner:
At the moment there are a number of theories that investigators are looking at. It could be something as trivial as a local business mafia revenge on the man who owned the nightclub. It could be something nationalistic such as people wanting to get revenge on Australians for their involvement in East Timor.

But the theory which most people are focusing on is that it's been carried out by an extreme Islamist organisation or group in Indonesia - possibly encouraged, but not necessarily directed by al-Qaeda.

A number of people have said - well surely al-Qaeda are behind this. It's too early to say yet although interestingly in the last few hours the Indonesian defence minister has said that he thinks that the attackers are linked to al-Qaeda. So it does seem as if the extreme fringe of Islam is going to take the blame for this.

Newshost:
Pontsho, Botswana: There seem to be more questions than answers in Bali. Are the people who did this part of Bin Laden's terrorist network or someone else?

Frank Gardner:
In Indonesia it's very hard to separate supporters of al-Qaeda and some of the extremist Islamic organisations. Indonesia is a huge sprawling archipelago of more than 13,000 islands, 200 million people. It's a very easy place for an organisation such as al-Qaeda to infiltrate and influence people. It must be remembered that throughout the entire Islamic world, there is a groundswell of anger about the West and its apparent double policies - particularly over the UN, for example - forcing Iraq to comply with resolutions while letting Israel apparently flout them. That's the way Muslims see things. America has a lot of enemies there.

America's whole war on terror is not popular in Muslim countries like Indonesia. So it's very hard to actually find who is a sympathiser in their mind with al-Qaeda and who is actually prepared to do something about it. And can you trace it back to al-Qaeda, which after all has no physical presence anymore in the way that it did in Afghanistan - it's scattered to the four corners of the earth.

So it is very hard for investigators but they have got some leads and the Indonesians are saying that they have got a number of suspects. They are not releasing the names at the moment but we are going to hear more about that, we think, in the next few days.

Newshost:
Matt Cooper, Nr Bath, England: How long do you envisage it will take the various security services to determine the perpetrators and if al-Qaeda are proved to be involved what do you think will be the specific implications?

Frank Gardner:
The investigators already are starting to look at the forensic evidence - they've gathered up samples. The FBI is there. Britain has sent its own anti-terrorist branch of Scotland Yard. The Australians have sent their investigators and of course the Indonesians have got their own people.

So they're looking at the forensic evidence and that will take a few days. They're almost certainly talking to a number of informers that they would have inside these various extremist groups. They may not actually announce the results straightaway, although there's huge international pressure on Indonesia to come up with some kind of answer as to how this happened on their prime tourist resort.

Newshost:
What could be the specific implications of the attack? What is America's response and Australia's response in particular? There is talk of Australia putting troops into Indonesia.

Frank Gardner:
I don't think there's any question of that happening. It's already quite contentious that Australia sent troops to East Timor in the first place. I don't anybody is talking occupying Indonesia. But there is going to be huge international pressure on the Indonesian government which is going to make it even harder for the Indonesian president.

She basically manages quite a delicate coalition - a balance of various parties - including Islamic parties. Now if she is tough with Islamic groups then that's going to undermine the support that she has politically which she depends on for her political survival. But if she doesn't act tough with them, then countries like the USA and neighbours like Singapore and Malaysia are going to say - Indonesia is a weak link in the war on terror and we're going to the have to take matters into out own hands - and who knows where that's going to end.

Newshost:
Gareth Perkins, Sydney, Australia: Do you think this latest terror attack is just the beginning of bombings aimed at US allies in the region?

Frank Gardner:
It's already begun - it begun before this. In December last year, the Singaporean authorities intercepted, what they said, was a major plot to blow up a number of US strategic targets in Singapore - embassies, US docking facilities where US warships were and other facilities in Singapore. They were talking about seven trucks with tons of explosives between them. They rounded up 31 members who, they say, belong to Jemaah Islamiah, the Islamic group.

The Far East has for some think been a neglected area in the so-called war on terror. US intelligence has said - and they've been quoted on this - that South East Asia is where the biggest concentration of al-Qaeda operatives are now concentrated outside Afghanistan and Pakistan. So it is a worry to a lot of people. Every country in the region has singed up to the so-called war on terror but Indonesia, in the view of many, is not doing enough.

Newshost:
Matthew Adams, London, UK: The UK's Indonesian ambassador stated that there have been concerns about al-Qaeda activity in Indonesia for some time. Why was Indonesia exempt from the "Axis of evil" speech? Were travellers warned to be careful?

Frank Gardner:
President Bush's famous "axis of evil" speech, which upset a lot of people - that was aimed at countries which the US authorities considered were actively encouraging or sponsoring terrorism.

No one is accusing the Indonesian government of encouraging or sponsoring terrorism. There's a big difference between, say Iraq, which is accused of actually manufacturing weapons of mass destructions or Iran, which America considers to be sponsoring terrorism - others would disagree and Indonesia, a country which, let's say, is perhaps tolerating it - big difference. So that's why it wasn't named in the "axis of evil". Saudi Arabia wasn't named but Saudi Arabia has been accused of encouraging it with a rather narrow-minded interpretation of Islam.

Were people warned? Yes they were but perhaps not publicly enough. The reason being that Indonesia, or certainly Bali. is largely a tourist destination and nobody thought before this that there was any chance something like this could happen on an island which is essentially non-political. It is a largely Hindu island where there is no background, no history of this kind of unrest.

Newshost:
James Gall, London UK (orig. Australia): Do you think this will be the incident that unites the members of the UN in the war on terrorism?

Frank Gardner:
I don't think it will unite them any more than it has done already. The whole world - at least every government in the world - says it is against terrorism - the problem is in the interpretation of the word terror. The United States has laid down what it believes is terrorism. But for the vast majority of Muslims and Arabs they would consider, for example, the Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, to be a proponent of state terrorism. And on the other hand, the Israelis and many of their supporters in the United States would consider that various Palestinian groups are terrorists.

So there's a big disagreement over the definition of terrorism. I don't think the world is ever going to be united over this. Only when the problems in the Middle East are eventually solved, will we see some kind of unanimity over what constitutes a terrorist.

Newshost:
Erwin Schönherr, The Netherlands: Who in Indonesia will still say terrorism does not exist there?

I'll put that with another question from Colin Birch, Aberdeen, UK: Is it likely that members of the Indonesian armed forces were involved in the Bali attack?

Frank Gardner:
Erwin, to take your question first - a very good question - and I think you've put your finger on the pathetic way that some governments in this whole business of the war on terror pretend that they don't have a problem - see no evil, hear no evil - it doesn't happen here, not in our backyard. Nonsense.

Indonesia has had a known presence of al-Qaeda for quite some time and it has pretended that it wasn't there. It denied it and denied it - Yemen did the same thing. So now they've been forced into the open and actually they've been quite swift about it.

The Indonesian defence minister has now openly admitted that they believe that al-Qaeda was linked to this attack. All he's doing is merely admitting what a lot of neighbours - not necessarily the US - but neighbours in the region have been saying for some time. That there is a problem with religious extremism in Indonesia. It's a huge country but its got a recent history of a lot of strife between Christians and Muslims, between different ethnic groups.

For example, one of the groups, Laskar Jihad, is accused of killing about 6,000 people over the last three years - attacking churches and so on. So there is a problem and Indonesia needs to admit its got a problem.

Newshost:
What about the involvement of security forces in Indonesia?

Frank Gardner:
I suppose it's always possible. It's a horrendous thought to think that anybody connected with the Indonesian government would have done something which has been so devastating to the Indonesian economy. Bali of course being the main tourist attraction in Indonesia and that's now shattered and it will be for a long time to come.

The Indonesian President, Megawatti Sukarnoputri, has a lot of enemies. Plenty of people would like to see her go. She's a women, she's not a particularly hard line Muslim. She represents what many people see as a rather broad constitution in Indonesia and the more extreme Islamic groups would like to see that replaced by a much more hard line Islamic government. So she's got her enemies. It's possible that somebody could have done this to try and discredit her. She has family interests in Bali, by the way.

Newshost:
Jack, Dorset: Do you think that these kind of attacks will take place on clubs in London or Paris, or do you think they will remain in the east of the world?

Frank Gardner:
I'm not going to stick my neck out Jack and say yes or no - that's going to tempt fate. What I would say is that it was easier for this sort of attack to take place in Indonesia - first of all for the lack of security. Nobody suspected something like this would happen in Bali - a tourist island, very carefree. Even some of the more nationalist members, the militias in Indonesia, who were involved in East Timor, have reportedly been using Bali to basically unwind and possibly to go for some of the more human attractions that they can't find in other parts of Indonesia. So it's a very lax holiday place but nevertheless in a country that has got quite a large presence of extremist Islamic groups.

The same is not true in Britain - there are 3 million Muslims in Britain and they are extremely law-abiding - nearly all of them - peaceful people. Whatever their grumbles they may have with the US or western policy, they are law-abiding people. That's not to say that it couldn't happen but it's much more likely to happen in a country like Indonesia than it would be to happen here in Britain.

Newshost:
Tejan Fadlu-Deen, United Arab Emirates: If America and Britain should attack Iraq and possibly de-stablilize the region, doesn't that further endanger the lives of Western Expatriates living and working in foreign countries?

Frank Gardner:
Well the bad news for you Tejan is yes it does, most definitely - not on a massive scale. But we've already seen in Kuwait in the last few days, Kuwaiti citizens taking pot shots at American soldiers. There was a gun fight only six days ago in Kuwait. Now these are ordinary citizens - not necessarily even members of al-Qaeda.

I lived in the UAE for some years so I know the situation there and it's a very peaceful place and I think the Dubai and Abu Dhabi authorities would be very careful to make sure something like this doesn't happen. Nevertheless, by people who only watch local, regional news and perhaps tune into the Arab channels, they're going to get very much an Arab perspective on things which tends to paint the West in a quite unattractive light in many ways when it comes to policy in the Middle East. So it is tempting for some people - not directed by al-Qaeda - but just simply to take matters into their own hands. It hasn't happened in the UAE but it could happen.

Newshost:
Borys Pawliw, Sydney (travelling): Are we really going to have to adapt to a world where such attacks - and worse - may become regular events?

Frank Gardner:
You'd have to have a crystal ball on this one. The US authorities would say this is exactly why the whole world needs to be united in the war on terror. Everyone said on September 11th last year, the world changed. Well, I'm not sure that it really did. I don't think any of us really have come to terms with having to live our lives looking over our shoulders the whole time. So far these attacks have been something which happens to other people or to people that we know. If you've watching this you're still alive. In that sense it hasn't touched all of us yet.

The problem really in the war on terror is that only the symptoms are being tackled. The root causes of anger particularly amongst Muslim extremist are not being tackled - if anything, they're being made worse. So until those problems are tackled, I'm afraid we can look forward to more terror.