Anthony Deutsch , The Associated Press , Jakarta | Sat, 08/08/2009 3:40 PM | National
Noordin Mohammad Top, an aspiring regional commander for al-Qaida who evaded capture for years until he was reportedly shot dead in a raid Saturday, has been linked to a series of bombings in Indonesia that killed 250 people.
The manhunt for Southeast's Asia's most wanted militant escalated last month when twin suicide blasts killed seven at the Ritz-Carlton and J.W. Marriott hotels in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta - ending a four-year lull in terrorsm.
Noordin has most notably has been linked to the Bali bombings in 2002 and 2005, which together killed 222 people, the majority of them foreigners vacationing on the resort island. He emerged as a regional terrorist leader with extensive bomb-making skills after the first Bali bombing and is accused of masterminding at least three major strikes in Indonesia.
If confirmed, his death would mark a major setback for terrorists operating in the world's most populous Muslim-majority nation.
Counterterrorism operations in recent years netted hundreds of suspected militants, including a number of Noordin's closest associates. But Noordin's time on the run seems to have ended in an hours-long shootout at a remote village in central Java where he had been holed up.
Police have not confirmed that his body was recovered from the scene, where a siege culminated in a burst of gunfire and explosions and police flashed each other a thumbs up.
Noordin, 40, formed his radical ideas in the early 1990s at a Malaysian boarding school headed by an Indonesian Muslim cleric, Abdullah Sungkar, who founded regional terror network Jemaah Islamiyah, which Noordin joined in 1998 after brief traiing in the southern Philippines.
He fled south to the Indonesian province of Riau in 2002 amid a crackdown on Muslim extremists in Malaysia in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States, before rising to prominence in the Bali bombings.
A disagreement over targeting civilians caused split in Jemaah Islamiyah and Noordin formed a more violent faction, Tanzim Qaidat al-Jihad, which he reportedly called the "al-Qaida for the Malay archipelago." Its aim is to create a common Muslim state in Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei and the Philippines.
A claim of responsibility for the July 17 attac was posted on the Internet in his name, but its authenticity could not be verified.
The U.S. State Department had classified Noordin as a terrorism financier since the 2002 and 2005 Bali bombings, but he managed to plot several other strikes while avoiding near capture half a dozen times.
Prosecutor say Noordin had ties to al-Qaida supported terrorist attacks, including the 2002 bombings on the resort island of Bali, the first J.W. Marriott Hotel attack in 2003, the Australian Embassy blast in 2004, and the 2005 triple suicide bombings on restaurants in Bali.
In July, police said Noordin was the mostlikely culprit behind the recent bombings, but he was not formally named as a suspect. His photo was widely distributed along with sketches of the suicide bombers and a $100,000 reward for information leading to his capture was outstanding.
With more that 17,000 islands and a population of 235 million, Indonesia is a relatively easy place for a fugitive to go underground, and terror experts said he has had the help of a substantial support network and several wives.
The closest authorities have ever come to seizing him was probably in July 2008, in Palembang, a coastal city on Sumatra, in a raid that netted 10 militant suspects.
Special police units were also said to have been close on his trail when in November 2005 they shot and killed Azhari Husin, a close friend and technical operative of Noordin's.
"As long as you keep your troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and intimidate Muslim people, you will feel our intimidation and our terror," a masked man believed to be Noordin said in the message aired on Indonesian television at the time. "You will be the target of our next attack."
Comments
Post a Comment