Anti-Terror police raid suspected hide-out of Noordin Mohamed Top

UPDATE: 17/09/09: The Australian reports that Noordin Top was killed in a police  raid on a militant hideout near Solo today.

Another high-value terrorist leader, this time Noordin Mohamed Top, the head of Indonesia’s Jemaah Islamiah splinter group Tandzim al-Qaedat - and believed to have been the architect of the recent Jakarta Hotel bombings – may not be down for breakfast:

Suspected terrorist mastermind Noordin Mohamed Top was believed to have been killed in a Central Java police raid today.

Indonesian police this afternoon were evacuating bodies from the house they had stormed, believing that the regional militant leader was hiding on the premises with several followers.

Indonesian news stations carried television footage of the raid, and quoted a police source as being “80 per cent certain” that Top had been in the house.

Top is suspected of having had a leading role in last month’s attacks on the JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotels in the capital, Jakarta, which killed nine people, including three Australians.

The raid today broke a 17-hour siege of the house that had officers trading automatic weapons fire with the militants.

Top: Mastermind of the Jakarta hotel bombings and master of disguise

Indonesian anti-terror police made their first significant advance in the Jakarta bombing investigation last night, when they raided the house in the Central Java village. A gun battle then raged around the house.

The raid was in Temanggung, near the provincial capital of Semarang, and in the same area where another man already linked to the bombs three weeks ago, Nur Said, grew up. Detachment 88 anti-terror investigators were engaged in a prolonged gunbattle from around 5pm (8pm AEST) yesterday, after evacuating near neighbours first.

Since dawn this morning, at least five explosions had rocked the suspected hideout of the alleged terrorist mastermind, who is a Malaysian.Police spokesman Nanan Sukarna said officers believed that the alleged militant leader and terror mastermind and two or three of his followers had been inside, but could not immediately confirm their fate.

Minutes after the raid, witnesses said officers outside the house took off their helmets and were shaking hands with each other, suggesting all those inside had either been killed or captured.

Police with anti-blast shields had earlier approached the house, which had been severely damaged in the course of the overnight siege, and laid explosive charges before detonating them through cables.

Temanggung, Central Java: Police stand guard as villagers watch the raid

Another line of about 25 police had taken position on an adjacent hill and fired repeated volleys from their assault rifles into the house below. Some 50 other police had been stationed elsewhere around the property.Rounds of gunfire burst through the walls from the inside, but it was not clear if this came from the occupants of the house, or from police.

When asked earlier by reporters if Top was in the house, national police chief Bambang Hendarso Danuri said: “God willing”. Nur Said, the second person linked to the bombings three weeks ago, and who went to school at Abu Bakar Bashir’s Muslim boarding school in the city of Solo with 2003 Mariott Hotel bomber Asmar Latin Sani, has been a key police suspect for several years but has not yet been located.

Some neighbours said the man who rented the house bore physical similarities to Top, a terrorist linked to al-Qai’da and Jemaah Islamiah.

There were also unconfirmed reports of a grenade being found in the house. Top’s father-in-law, Central Java preacher Bahrudin Latif, was also believed to have been one of four people inside. Mr Latif’s daughter Arina, and two toddlers presumed to be Top’s children, were taken into police custody days after the July 17 bombings on hotels in Jakarta.

Police admitted repeatedly in recent days they had been unable to turn up any new leads in the case.

However, the shootout and subsequent storming of the house followed the arrests of two men earlier yesterday at a nearby market. Those men are believed to have led police to the house.

The raid came after Barack Obama’s chief counter-terrorism adviser, John Brennan, said the US President is replacing the “global war on terror” with a new US strategy more narrowly focused on al-Qa’ida and relying more on a broader effort to engage the Muslim world.

The Jakarta hotel blasts last month broke a four-year gap in terror strikes in Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim nation.

The Malaysian Top is also believed to have played a major role in four other bombings in Indonesia since 2002, including nightclub bombings on the resort island of Bali that year that killed 202 people, including 88 Australians.

If confirmed, this will be without doubt a major blow to Muslim terrorism in South East Asia. Top has for some time been among Indonesia’s most wanted men, blamed for playing key roles in a series of deadly explosions in this vast country; the world’s most populous Muslim nation.

These included the Christmas Eve church explosions in Jakarta in 2000, the Bali bombings in 2002 and 2005, the Marriot Hotel blasts in 2003 and Australian Embassy bombings in 2004; killing a total of more than more than 260 people and seriously injuring many more.

The operation is believed to have disrupted several other major plots, including a possible attempt on the life of the Indonesian President, Susilo Yudhoyono.

In addition to Top’s reported death, a number of other terrorists were either shot or detained.

Although it is arguable that leaders of such groups will always be replaced, we believe that successful counterterrorism operations deal a significant psychological blow (with, of course, a corresponding boost to morale on the other side) – corrosive damage to an innate belief, common to organisations such as these, that they are invincible.

[Main Story: The Australian]

One Response to “Indonesia: AQ-linked Terrorist Leader ‘Killed’”