Expert Says 99 Percent Certain Fugitive Dulmatin Killed

JAKARTA, KOMPAS.com - Indonesian police believe they have shot dead a top fugitive militant, wanted over the 2002 Bali bombings, in what could be a major coup in the country’s fight against Islamist radicals, police and analysts said on Tuesday. Police sources said two raids in Pamulang, in Banten province, were linked to a series of assaults on suspected Islamist militants in Aceh province and had been targeting Dulmatin, a fugitive member of militant group Jemaah Islamiah.

The raids on the southern outskirts of Jakarta come ahead of a visit by U.S. President Barack Obama to the world’s most populous Muslim nation on March 20-22. National Police spokesman Edward Aritonang said the dead suspect in the first raid was thought to be “linked with terrorist incidents that police were investigating”, but police were identifying the body and this could take up to two days.

A police source involved in the operation, who declined to be identified, told Reuters they “strongly suspect it was Dulmatin”. Sidney Jones, an expert on Islamist militants at the International Crisis Group think tank, said in a telephone text message: “It looks 99 percent certain it’s him.”

Aritonang said the dead man had fired at police and a revolver was found with 5 bullets still inside and 13 spares. Metro TV showed footage it said was the face of the dead man, with short hair and a wispy beard. It also displayed an earlier photograph of Dulmatin from an identity document as a
comparison.

The dead man was later carried in an orange body bag to an ambulance after the raid on a two-storey building that housed a small Internet and copying business at street level. Police said a second raid was conducted nearby about an hour later, targeting members of the same group.

Two suspects were shot and two detained. TV footage showed a dead man, wearing a black top, trousers and sandals, slumped on the ground.

Nearby, a motorbike was lying on its side that police said the suspects had tried to flee on. A Reuters photographer at the scene saw two body bags being carried away by police.

USD 10 million bounty 

Indonesian Dulmatin, an electronics specialist who also trained in Afghanistan, is wanted over the 2002 Bali bombings which killed 202 people and was believed to have been hiding in the southern Philippines. The United States had offered a $10 million reward for information on Dulmatin, who is said to have been wounded after escaping a raid by Philippine security forces in 2006.

Indonesia’s counter-terrorism unit, Detachment 88, has launched raids across the archipelago following the discovery of a militant Islamist training camp in Aceh last month. Books on jihad, rifles and military uniforms were found during those raids, in which 19 suspected members of the group were detained in Aceh and Java.

Two other suspects and three police have been killed during the hunt for more suspects. Dulmatin was thought to be working with the Abu Sayyaf group in the Philippines, said Noor Huda Ismail, an Indonesian expert on radical Islamist groups.

“It would be a major blow for the violent movement in Indonesia if it was Dulmatin. However, it would also send a disturbing signal to us that there are many terrorists who manage to enter Indonesia from abroad,” Ismail said.

Ismail said Dulmatin had the capability to succeed Noordin Mohammad Top, a Malaysian-born militant and bomb maker killed by police last year during a raid in central Java. Top, who is believed to have set up a violent splinter group of Jemaah Islamiah, masterminded a series of bombings including suicide attacks on luxury hotels in Jakarta last July.

Police had initially thought they had killed the elusive Top last August but forensic tests proved that wrong and he was finally killed a month later. Mardigu Wowi Prasantyo, another expert on militants in Indonesia, said Dulmatin had expertise in bombings, sniper attacks and guerrilla fighting. Indonesia has been dealing with militant attacks for the past decade from groups such as Jemaah Islamiah, some of whose members trained in Afghanistan, Pakistan and the southern Philippines.

A Saudi man and an Indonesian are on trial in Indonesia in connection with the hotel bombings in Jakarta last year that killed 11 people, including the suicide bombers. Police have said the hotel bombings pointed to the re-establishment of a link between al Qaeda and local militants.

Al Qaeda helped fund the 2002 Bali bombings and the 2003 J.W. Marriott hotel bombings in Jakarta, which killed scores of Indonesians and Westerners, police say.