Posted on 11/09/2005 3:14:09 PM PST by Aussie Dasher
THE death of Malaysian bomb mastermind Azahari Husin will remove one of the brains behind terrorist network Jemaah Islamiah, the Australian government has said.
Foreign Minister Alexander Downer and Attorney General Philip Ruddock have welcomed reports the so-called "Demolition Man" who was behind both Bali attacks and the Jakarta Australian Embassy bombing has blown himself up after a shootout in Indonesia.
"Noordin Top and Azahari have been the two keys to these bombings by what we broadly define as Jemaah Islamiah in Indonesia, so to take either or both of them out is a very important step forward," Mr Downer said on ABC radio.
Police have been hunting Husin and fellow Malaysian Noordin Mohamad Top since the first Bali bombings in 2002, which killed 88 Australians among 202 people.
Australian police have been asked to help identify the body, Mr Ruddock said.
"The Australian Federal Police have been asked to assist with the identification process, it's an area where we have considerable expertise," he said on Channel 9.
"We really await that formal confirmation, but the Indonesian police are reasonably confident that they have located him and that he has taken his own life."
Mr Ruddock said confirmation of Husin's death would be a blow to Jemaah Islamiah.
"He was also said to be the inspirational leader who recruited people for the organisation, and hopefully that would diminish its capacity," he said.
"But one ought not to be I think blase about these matters, one can't assume that those that are left won't still have some residual capacity to continue the sort of activities we've seen them engaged in."
Mr Downer said Husin's death would be significant.
"It's very important, not that one would wish anybody dead, but it's very important to get Azahari right out of the scene," he said.
"It's very early days and there have been false reports before so the Indonesian police are far from confirmed that this was Azahari, but anyway it would be very good news if he had been taken out of the scene."
Ending a three-year manhunt, Husin apparently triggered a bomb killing himself and several accomplices after police surrounded a villa in the East Java hill resort town of Batu, near Malang.
Mr Downer said the hunt would continue for Noordin Top.
"They're still looking for him and to the best of my knowledge they still don't know where he is," he said.
"There have been actually on quite a number of occasions sightings of both of them and there have been attacks to seize them on previous occasions, but so far without success."
Husin, a bespectacled 48-year-old, has been JI's top explosives expert.
He joined the South-East Asian terrorist network in the late 1990s and garnered his explosives expertise at al-Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan.
Now he's the brains all over the wall!
Good riddance, no trial.
"...not that one would wish anybody dead, ..."
What's with all the 'High 5s', then?
I would classify Downer's remark as typical Aussie ironic understatement.
ping
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