Indonesian police shot dead a man suspected to be leading Islamic militant Noordin Mohammad Top after an 18-hour siege in Central Java and planned to confirm his identity using DNA tests, police said yesterday.
Police in a separate raid foiled a plot to attack Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s residence outside the capital, Jakarta, with a car bomb, officials said.
Malaysian-born Top is a prime suspect in last month’s near simultaneous suicide attacks on Jakarta’s JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotels that killed nine people and wounded 53.
Yudhoyono has vowed to track down the bombers and if Top has been killed or captured it would be major coup for security forces and could reduce the chance of further attacks.
Police planned to seek a DNA sample from the family of Top to confirm his death after a shoot-out in Central Java, national police chief Bambang Hendarso Danuri told a news conference.
“We welcome if the family, the wife wants to see the face. If this is Noordin Top then please let us check the DNA. If this is done then we can say who this is,” he said.
Police have launched a series of raids since Friday and two police sources close to the investigation into the hotel attacks said a man suspected to be Top was killed in Temanggung, more than 400km southeast of Jakarta.
“He was shot dead,” one source said, adding that raids in the area had led police to a house in Bekasi, on the outskirts of the capital, where up to 500kg of bombs had been found. A correspondent in Bekasi heard a loud blast from the cordoned-off area and police said they had killed two suspected militants.
The militants were planning a suicide car bomb attack on the Yudhoyono’s residence in Bogor near Jakarta, the police chief said. He added that the militants planned to use a minibus packed with explosives to target Yudhoyono, holding him responsible for the execution of the Bali bombers last year.
Intelligence officials say Top, 40, and fellow Malaysian Azahari Husin, a bomb maker who was killed in a 2005 police raid, were leaders in the Jemaah Islamiah militant network, blamed for a series of bomb attacks in Indonesia since 2002.
Top is believed to have planned previous bomb attacks on the JW Marriott in Jakarta in 2003, on the Australian Embassy in Jakarta in 2004 and in Bali in 2005.
Security consultant Ken Conboy said Top was key to the network with his skills of recruiting suicide bombers.
“If you look at the history of violent radicalism in Indonesia, once they wrap up the main players, it goes into a period of hiatus for a time,” he said.
On Friday, police had said two men who were believed to be Top’s bodyguards had been arrested in a workshop in a market in the village of Temanggung and had led police to a small, red-roofed house in the same area, surrounded by trees and rice fields, where there was a shoot-out and overnight standoff with suspected militants.
Yesterday, after sporadic exchanges of gunfire, explosions shook the house followed by further shooting. Then TV footage showed police carrying items from inside the house, while laughing and shaking hands with colleagues.
A signaling system malfunction disrupted high-speed rail (HSR) services beginning at 8am today, with trains temporarily reduced to three northbound and three southbound trains per hour as authorities conduct inspections. The malfunction occurred on a section of track in Miaoli County during pre-operation checks early this morning, forcing northbound and southbound trains to use a single track, the HSR operator said. The regular schedule has been replaced with three hourly trains offering only nonreserved seating in each direction, stopping at every station, it said, adding that business class cars would still have reserved seating. Departures from terminal stations are scheduled at the top
Taiwan is still in the process of assessing the possibility of recruiting workers from Eswatini, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday, adding that its goal is to help Eswatini upgrade its vocational training centers. If there are plans to recruit workers from Eswatini, safeguarding national security, protecting public health and ensuring the employment rights of Taiwanese would be prerequisites, Department of West Asian and African Affairs Director-General Yen Chia-liang (顏嘉良) told a news conference. Key considerations would also include filling labor shortages in specific industries, and fostering bilateral professional and technical exchanges, he said. Yen was asked about the progress of labor
VERBOSE VESSELS: A CGA cutter and a China Coast Guard exchanged verbal barbs for more than a day in Taiwanese-controlled waters before the Chinese vessel left The Taiwanese and Chinese coast guards had a standoff near the strategically located Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島) in the north of the South China Sea, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said yesterday. The two sides engaged in intense radio exchanges over sovereignty claims during the 33-hour standoff. China Coast Guard vessel 3501 eventually left the restricted waters, 26.6 nautical miles (49.2km) west of the Pratas Islands, at 5pm yesterday, the CGA said. Lying approximately between southern Taiwan and Hong Kong, the Taiwan-controlled Pratas are seen by some security experts as vulnerable to Chinese attack due to their distance — more than
A US uncrewed surface vessel (USV) encountered multiple Chinese warships during an autonomous transit of the Taiwan Strait, US defense company Seasats said in a statement on Wednesday. Seasats announced that a Lightfish USV had completed the first autonomous transit of the Taiwan Strait. Over five days, the USV traversed the entire length of the Strait while constantly monitoring surface vessel traffic, the company said. The Lightfish encountered multiple Chinese warships, one of which was a Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) Type 056 corvette, it said. The Chinese vessels were operating “well within Taiwan’s exclusive economic zone without transmitting their identity via the
RSS