Indonesian police shot dead three suspected militants during two raids targeting a top militant wanted over the 2002 Bali bombings, police and a witness said yesterday.
Police sources said the raids in Pamulang in Banten Province were part of a series of assaults on a suspected Islamic militant group in Aceh Province targeting Dulmatin, a fugitive Indonesian member of militant group Jemaah Islamiyah.
The raids come ahead of a visit by US President Barack Obama on March 20 to March 22.
National Police spokesman Edward Aritonang said the suspect in the first raid was thought to be “linked with terrorist incidents that police were investigating” but police were still identifying the body.
A police source who was involved in the operation and who declined to be identified said police “strongly suspect it was Dulmatin.”
TV footage showed police carrying an orange body bag to an ambulance after the raid on a two-story building that housed a small Internet and copying business at street level.
Police said a second raid was conducted nearby about an hour later, targeting members of the same group. Two suspects were shot and two detained.
Metro TV showed footage of a motorbike lying on its side, which the suspects were believed to have tried to use to flee. It also said that a bomb had been found.
A Reuters photographer at the scene saw two body bags being carried away by police.
Dulmatin is wanted over the 2002 Bali bombings.
Indonesia’s counterterrorism unit, Detachment 88, has launched a series of nationwide raids following the discovery of a militant Islamic training camp in Aceh last month. Books on Jihad, rifles and military uniforms were found during the raids in which 19 suspected members of the group were detained in Aceh and Java.
Dulmatin was thought to be in the Philippines working with the Abu Sayyaf group, said Noor Huda Ismail, an Indonesian expert on radical Islamist groups.
“It would be a major blow for the violent movement in Indonesia if it was Dulmatin. However, it would also send a disturbing signal to us that there are many terrorists who manage to enter Indonesia from abroad,” Ismail said.
Ismail said that Dulmatin had the capability to succeed Noordin Mohammad Top, a Malaysian-born militant and bombmaker killed by police last year during a raid in central Java.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese