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Terror suspects probed over Top links
INDONESIAN police were today investigating whether five suspected terrorists arrested in Central Sulawesi province at the weekend were linked to Southeast Asia's most wanted terrorist.National police deputy spokesman Anton Bahrul Alam said five men, arrested on Saturday in the town of Tolitoli, would be questioned at the national police headquarters in Jakarta. Mr Alam confirmed that the five people, all men, were arrested on suspicion of terrorism but said police were still investigating whether they had links to Malaysian fugitive Noordin Mohammad Top. "We cannot yet say that (they are linked) as this is still being investigated," he said. Two of the arrested were allegedly involved in the murder of a female Christian reverend at a church in Palu, the capital of Central Sulawesi, in July 2004. Four other people were injured in the attack by gunmen. Another of the suspects was found in possession of bullets, while the remaining two were suspected of assisting terrorist operations, Mr Alam said. The state-run Antara news agency said at the weekend that the five were suspected of being close accomplices of Top and his compatriot Azahari Husin, who was shot dead in a police raid in East Java in November. It identified the five as Aprianto also known as Irwan, Arman or Haris, Nano, Abdul Muis and Asrudin. Meanwhile, villagers in Central Sulawesi's Poso thwarted an attempt by police to arrest another suspect early today and burned two police motorcycles, a report said. The Detikcom online news service said that a team from Indonesia's elite anti-terror squad attempted to arrest a suspect identified as Taufik Baluga but the family refused to hand him over, demanding a reason for the arrest. Other villagers quickly gathered at the house and later began to attack the team. The police escaped but two motorcycles left behind were torched, Detikcom said. Some 120 paramilitary police were sent to reestablish order, it said. The report could not be immediately confirmed with Poso police. Noordin and Azahari, formerly senior leaders of the al-Qaeda-linked Jemaah Islamiyah regional network, are accused of involvement in a series of deadly bombings including the 2002 Bali blasts that killed 202 people. Noordin has several times narrowly escaped arrest, mostly recently on April 29 when police hunting for him raided a house in Central Java and killed two militants. Posted by: Oztralian 2006-05-08 |
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