The Jakarta Post, February 01, 2006
Noordin leading new terror organization: Police chief
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Fugitive Malaysian terror suspect Noordin M. Top has declared himself the leader of a
new regional terrorist group called Tandzim Qoedatul Jihad, National Police chief Gen.
Sutanto says.
Noordin is believed to be a key leader of the regional Jamaah Islamiyah (JI) terror
network blamed for a series of bomb attacks across the country.
"The information (on the new terror group) is based on testimony from several
suspects arrested recently in Semarang, Central Java," Sutanto said Monday at a
public hearing at the House of Representatives.
Central Java Police have arrested 10 men, naming six of them suspects for their
alleged connections with Noordin. They are accused of assisting him in planning and
carrying out the Oct. 1 attacks on Bali, which killed 23 people including three suicide
bombers.
"The (new) group is definitely linked with terrorists. Its members helped Noordin in the
second Bali bombings by committing robberies in Yogyakarta and Tegal in Central
Java to finance the attacks," Sutanto said.
According to documents obtained by police, Noordin has positioned himself as the
new terror group's leader for the Malay region, covering Indonesia, Brunei, the
Philippines and parts of other Asian countries.
National Police chief of detectives Comr. Gen. Makbul Padmanegara said this new
group was likely an offshoot of Jamaah Islamiyah.
"There is no new group. What could have possibly happened is that the old (group JI)
recruited new people to replace the ones who had died," he said, referring to Noordin's
accomplice, Azahari bin Husin, who was killed last year in a police raid in Malang,
East Java.
When asked about the existence of Tandzim Qoedatul Jihad, former JI member Nasir
Abbas said he had not heard the name before.
"It must be Noordin's new group with new people as his followers," he told The Jakarta
Post.
Tandzim Qoedatul Jihad could have been responsible for some of the more recent
attacks in Jakarta and Bali, he said.
Sidney Jones from the International Crisis Group think tank also had not heard of the
organization.
"But it's been clear for a while that Noordin and the bombers have split in some way
from JI and this is the first indication that I've seen that the split may actually have
become formal," she told AFP.
"If Noordin is claiming that he's the commander, then this may be an indication that
the split has taken on a new dimension."
Jones said Noordin and Azahari appeared to have had contacts with JI around the
time of the August 2003 bombing of the JW Marriott hotel in Jakarta, which killed 12
people.
But a car bomb outside the Australian Embassy in Jakarta in September 2004, which
left 10 people dead plus a suicide bomber, may have been independently carried out
by the new splinter group, she said.
Jones added as a caveat, however, that after the Christmas Eve church bombings of
2000 -- the first major coordinated attack blamed on JI -- member Imam Samudra
claimed responsibility on behalf of the "Badar Battalion".
This, however, was "all the while still JI".
"Just because of past experience, it could be that he's making this claim without
formally renouncing JI linkages," she said.
JI's most deadly attack was its bombings of Bali nightspots in October 2002, which
killed 202 people -- mostly western holidaymakers. (09)
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