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Bombing mastermind's `aide' detained in Indonesia

Indonesian police have captured a suspected aide of wanted militant Abu Dujana, who is thought to head a splinter group of Southeast Asian militant group Jemaah Islamiah (JI), a police spokesman said yesterday.

Dujana has replaced Noordin M Top, a Malaysian national considered a mastermind behind a series of bomb attacks, as Indonesia's most wanted fugitive, deputy police chief Makbul Padmanegara said last week.

The captured man, named Mahfud but also known as Yusron, was caught by Detachment 88, Indonesia's secretive anti-terror unit, in the town of Banyumas in Central Java, 320km southeast of the capital, Jakarta, National Police spokesman Sisno Adiwinoto said by telephone.

"We have captured Mahfud, alias Yusron. He is suspected of being a member of Abu Dujana's staff," Adiwinoto said.

Mahfud was caught on Saturday, said Adiwinoto, but no bombs had been found. Adiwinoto declined to give further details, saying the investigation was still under way.

The spokesman said that from information provided by Mahfud they were looking for Dujana and other militants.

"We are looking for other suspects as well as evidence still being examined now, so we can't give further information," he said.

After a series of raids earlier this year, police revealed that Dujana had emerged as the head of a military wing of JI after the 2005 death of master bombmaker Azahari Husin.

Police previously said Dujana had direct control of the group's ammunition and explosives, including distribution and storage.

In the March raids, police said they had also found a huge cache of weapons, explosives and chemicals that could be used to make a bomb bigger than the main device used in Bali in 2002.

JI has been blamed for the 2002 and 2005 Bali bombings, which together killed more than 200 people, and attacks in Jakarta on the Marriott Hotel in 2003 and on the Australian embassy in 2004.
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