[Nikkei Asian Review] Indonesian police have confirmed the death the country's most-wanted terrorist with links to Daesh only a week after a new police chief was sworn in. Santoso, also known as Abu Wardah, had been in hiding for several years in the jungles of Poso district, Central Sulawesi Province, before he and another gunman were gunned down during a joint operation by police and the military on Monday afternoon.National Police chief Gen. Tito Karnavian said on Tuesday afternoon, "I've just received information that the fingerprint matches an old one of [Santoso]. He had been detained before, so we can conclude 100% that the dead person was Santoso."
The other rebel killed was identified as one of Santoso's followers.
Santoso, 40, was the commander of the Eastern Indonesia Mujahideen (MIT), which became the most prominent terror group in the country after police mostly managed to incapacitate Jemaah Islamiyah. JI, the Southeast Asian counterpart of al-Qaida, was responsible for large-scale terror attacks in Indonesia in the 2000s, including the 2002 Bali bombings that killed 202 people. JI targeted Western establishments, but MIT became known for its series of attacks targeting police officers and police facilities in 2012.
Santoso was a former seller of Islamic books who was inspired by Abu Bakar Ba'asyir, a firebrand cleric and spiritual leader of JI currently detained in an Indonesian prison. His group had been holding paramilitary training for local militants in Poso jungles ,even before Santoso pledged his allegiance to Daesh in 2014. Santoso proclaimed himself the local Daesh "commander" in Indonesia in a video uploaded to YouTube in 2015. Santoso had been on the police's wanted list since 2007.
Apart from dozens of other MIT militants still hiding in the jungles of Poso, there are other terror cells in the nation operating independently, such as one led by a man called Bahrun Naim. Naim, who is believed to have joined Daesh in Syria, allegedly orchestrated a terror attack in Jakarta in January that killed eight people.