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JI recruiting ring disrupted in Java
Indonesian police have identified six suspected terrorist "nests" just a day after arresting four suspects in the Australian Embassy bombing. The chief of central Java police, Inspector-General Chaerul Rasyid, said anti-terrorist teams were watching six areas on the forested slopes of Salem mountain, near the villages of Losari and Brebes, on the border between west and central Java. "I don't want to mention exactly which area they are in," he said, "but, for sure, there are six areas that we suspect." He said suicide bombers were being recruited and trained in the area. Volunteers were offered around A$35,000 ($39,210) to blow themselves up.
"Hey, Mahmoud! You open to a job as a suicide bomber?"
"I dunno. What's it pay?" |
The chief of Brebes police, Bambang Purwanto, confirmed that police were watching half a dozen areas in the heavy jungles along Java's volcanic spine. "It's true. We suspect that mountain area because it is isolated and connects central Java to Kuningan [near Cirebon] in west Java," he said. Police say they have captured four men believed to have carried out the embassy bombing, including the field co-ordinator of the attack, named Rois. The others arrested during a wave of raids were Hasan, Apuy and Sogir, said to be a master bomb maker. All were wearing suicide bomb belts.
| But they were still arrested? What were they using the belts for? To hold their pants up? |
But the mastermind of several bombings carried out by the al Qaeda-linked Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) network, Malaysian Azahari Husin, slipped through police dragnets when he went unrecognised by traffic officers on three occasions. Rumours were swirling in Jakarta that Azahari had also been captured, but authorities were keeping his arrest quiet to capture JI suicide bomb recruiter Noordin Top.
| Be still, my beating heart... |
Police managed to stop Rois and his three colleagues from blowing themselves up by using a local bus driver to lure them into the open, where their arms were pinned by teams of anti-terror squad officers.
| Very brave anti-terror squad officers, we might add. |
Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said the discovery of several bombs packed into luggage bags and backpacks highlighted that JI was still a threat, despite being decimated by arrests after Bali. "We don't have any specific information about places that might be targeted involving Australian or other nationalities," he told the Nine Network. "But ... the Jemaah Islamiyah operation does target Western targets, they're particularly focused on Americans, but they do single out Western targets."
Posted by: Dan Darling 2004-11-28 |
