An anti-terror squad raided an Islamic militant stronghold in central Indonesia today, touching off a gunbattle that killed nine suspected fighters and one officer, the local police chief said. Security forces arrested 18 other alleged militants and seized a large haul of bombs and weapons in the three-hour exchange, a sharp escalation in the fight against terrorism in the world's most populous Muslim nation. "If they did not fire at us, there is no way we would have attacked them," Brig Gen Badrodin Haiti told reporters.We guessed that...
The raid took place on Sulawesi island, the scene of bloody fighting between Muslim and Christian gangs six years ago and sporadic bombings and shootings by Islamic extremists since then. The raid was part of a series of operations in recent weeks targeting Muslim militants on Sulawesi that police allege were behind scores of bombings, shootings and other attacks on Christian men, woman and children. On January 11, Poso police killed a man they said was a senior member of the al-Qaeda linked Jemaah Islamiyah, which was blamed for the 2002 Bali bombings and other deadly attacks in Indonesia in recent years.