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 sources said the raids in Pamulang, in Banten province, were linked to a series of assaults on suspected Islamic militants in Aceh province and had been targeting Dulmatin, a fugitive member of militant group Jemaah Islamiah. The raids come ahead of a visit by US president Barack Obama on March 20th-22nd to the world's most populous Muslim nation.
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 still identifying the body and this could take a few days.
But a police source who was involved in the operation said police "strongly suspect it was Dulmatin".
TV footage showed police carrying 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.
Indonesian Dulmatin is wanted over the 2002 Bali bombings and was believed to have been hiding in the southern Philippines.
Indonesia's counter-terrorism unit, Detachment 88, has launched a series of 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 the raids in which 19 suspected members of the group were detained in Aceh and Java.
Two suspects and three police have been killed during the ongoing hunt for more suspects.
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 that the hotel bombings pointed to the re-establishment of a connection between al-Qaeda and local militants.
Reuters