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| Indonesia's Most Wanted Man Killed |
| By nytimes.com/ |
| Published: 09/17/2009 |
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JAKARTA (Reuters) - Indonesia's most wanted Islamist militant, Noordin Mohammad Top, was killed in a police shoot-out in Central Java, police said on Thursday, lifting a major security threat ahead of a planned visit by U.S. President Barack Obama. Malaysian-born Top, who set up a violent splinter group of regional militant network Jemaah Islamiah, was widely considered the mastermind of the bomb attacks on two luxury hotels in Jakarta in July, as well as other attacks in Bali and in Jakarta, which have killed scores of Westerners and Indonesians. National police chief Bambang Hendarso Danuri, when asked if it was true that Top had been killed, told reporters: "Yes, yes yes." The police chief had just held a meeting with President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. A smiling Danuri later announced Top's death at a news conference, triumphantly holding up photos to show the match between Top's fingerprints and those on police file, as reporters and police in the room cheered. He said police had also seized documents, laptops and weapons in the raid. Local media, quoting police sources, had trumpeted Top's death last month during a police raid in Central Java, only to have forensic tests prove that wrong days later. But Danuri said that there 14 points of match between the fingerprints, while only 11 were required for a confirmation. Indonesia, Southeast Asia's biggest economy and the world's most populous Muslim country, has been under intense pressure to capture or kill Top ahead of Obama's visit in November. "It's a huge blow for the extremist organizations in Indonesia and the region," said Sidney Jones, an expert on Islamic militants with the International Crisis Group. "It's a major success for the police but it doesn't mean, unfortunately, that the problem of terrorism is over. It's still unclear how many people were in Noordin's group and there are a number of fugitives still at large who have at least the potential to replace him as the leader of an al Qaeda-like organization." National police spokesman Nanan Soekarna said three people had been captured in the overnight raid on a house near Solo, including the wife of the man renting the house and two others, who were detained earlier. "We also confiscated explosives, weapons and a grenade from the house," Soekarna said, adding later that eight sacks of explosives had been found. Three other people killed in the raid included members of Top's inner circle, police and analysts said. Read More. |
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