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| Southeast Asia |
| Jakarta bombing masterminds elude capture |
| 2004-09-16 |
| One's dubbed "the demolition man," a low and high explosives expert. The other's known for his skills in recruiting suicide bombers for the deadliest al-Qaida-linked terrorist attacks in Southeast Asia that have killed westerners and Muslims alike. The two Malaysians at the center of a massive manhunt in the wake of last week's Australian Embassy bombing have eluded capture for several years by renting cheap houses in densely populated areas with back alleys close by for quick getaways, police say. "They're very slippery and highly alert for police movements," Indonesia's chief detective Suyitno Landung told The Associated Press. "They are always on the move." Azahari bin Husin, a British trained engineer and top bombmaker, and Noordin Mohamed Top, a reported moneyman and recruiting whiz, are both key figures in Jemaah Islamiyah, a Southeast Asian terror group loosely linked to al-Qaida, officials in Malaysia and Indonesia say. Police claim to have been close to catching the two several times, but the fact that they're still at large — and allegedly organizing fresh attacks, recruiting bombers and perfecting their bombmaking — shows the difficulty authorities face in fighting terror in this sprawling country. The fugitives are believed to have a network of militant collaborators across the world's most populous Muslim nation, who shelter them and provide logistical support, a senior police official told The Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity. The pair trained with other Southeast Asian and Arab militants in Afghanistan and southern Philippines before moving to Indonesia in 2001, according to officials. "They've become more independent, aggressive and highly dangerous," said Andrew Tan, from the Singapore Institute of Defence and Strategy. "They were second-level Jemaah Islamiyah figures but they've come into the spotlight since the arrest of the network's top leaders." |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |