Paras Indonesia, 10, 07 2005 @ 07:53 pm
'Noordin Top Narrowly Evades Arrest'
Roy Tupai
Police came within two hours of arresting one of the country's most wanted terror
suspects, reports said Friday (7/10/05).
Police raided the Central Java town of Purwantoro, southeast of Solo city, at about
3am Friday after receiving information that Malaysian fugitive Noordin Mohammad Top
had been hiding there for at least two days. A senior local police officer said the
suspect had gone there after October 1, when the resort island of Bali was hit by triple
suicide bombings.
"After the Bali bombing, he [Noordin] was still there... We raided the house at around
3am, during Sahur time [the pre-dawn meal during the fasting month of Ramadhan],
but according to the neighbors he had left around 1am," Solo Police chief Abdul
Madjid was quoted as saying by the Financial Times.
"He might come back to the house. We just told the neighbors we were looking for a
robbery suspect," he added.
A report by the Associated Press said the house was supposed to be raided at 1am,
but police waited a couple of hours because they were worried Noordin was armed
with explosives. "When they got there it was too late," said Madjid.
The reports did not identify the owner or the tenants of the house, or mention whether
they had been detained for questioning.
Noordin and fellow Malaysian fugitive Azahari Husin, both members of regional
terrorism network Jemaah Islamiyah, have been accused of involvement in a series of
terror attacks in Indonesia, including the October 2002 Bali nightclub bombings that
killed 202 people.
Authorities have said the pair might have also been involved in last Saturday's suicide
bombings that killed 22 people at three restaurants in Bali.
Azahari is regarded as Jemaah Islamiyah's best bomb-makers, while Noordin is
believed to be a senior planner and recruiter of suicide bombers.
National Police officials declined to confirm the police's apparent near miss of
Noordin, but a police spokesman in Wonogiri district said counter-terrorism officers
had conducted a raid for a "top wanted terrorist."
New Generation
Bali Police chief Made Mangku Pastika on Friday said the three suicide bombers
responsible for Saturday's deadly blasts were from a "new generation" of terrorists and
had probably been recruited specifically for the attacks.
"They come from a new group. A new generation means that [they] are not known by
the old group," he was quoted as saying by Reuters.
He declined to comment on speculation the three might have been trained by Muslim
radicals in the southern Philippines - a claim rejected by officials in the Philippines.
Terrorism analysts have said Azahari and Noordin might have formed a new faction
within Jemaah Islamiyah after other members of the network opted not to continue
bombings that resulted in Muslim casualties.
National Police spokesman Aryanto Budihardjo said it was still too early for police to
name any particular group behind the latest Bali bombings. "We want to concentrate
on these three people who did the bombing first, so we have not yet reached a
conclusion on the group," he said.
Sidney Jones of the International Crisis Group has said Azahari and Noordin might
have teamed up with smaller Indonesian radical groups, possibly forming a splinter
group that has been called Thoifah Muqatilah (Fighting Force).
Police have questioned more than 115 people over the Bali attacks and raided several
houses in the search for associates of the suspects, but no arrests have been made
yet.
Copyright (c) 2005 - PT Laksamana Global International. All rights reserved
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