Posted on 11/10/2005 1:25:03 AM PST by naturalman1975
INDONESIA on Thursday confirmed that master bomb-maker and Islamic radical Azahari Husin, one of Asia's top terror suspects and most wanted men, was killed after a shootout with police.
Azahari, a Malaysian from the al-Qaeda linked Jemaaah Islamiyah (JI) militant network who was known as the 'Demolition Man', was tracked down Wednesday at his remote hideway in Batu and reportedly blew himself up to avoid capture.
Indonesia's national police chief said fingerprinting had confirmed that Azahari, known as a master of disguise, was killed during the stand-off in East Java.
"There were two comparative (sets of fingerprints) and both are identical," General Sutanto told reporters, showing sets taken from a body as well as prints from Malaysian documents dated 1969 and bearing Azahari's photo.
Presidential spokesman Andi Mallarangeng said in Jakarta that President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono had been informed of Azahari's death and had congratulated police.
Azahari apparently triggered a bomb, killing himself and two others, after a shootout with police who surrounded a rundown house, where residents believe he had stayed with two other men for about three months.
Confirmation of his death is a coup for Indonesian security services against JI, the group blamed for the 2002 Bali bombings which killed 202 people as well as a triple suicide bombing on the resort island last month.
Police said they had also identified two of the three bombers who killed 20 people at packed restaurants with shrapnel-packed bombs on October 1.
The pair were publicly identified only as MS and MN, but national police spokesman Aryanto Budiharjo said their identities had been confirmed after DNA testing and through information provided by their families.
Mr Budiharjo said they came from Java island but provided no further details. He did not say whether there was a link between their identification and the capture of Azahari.
Bali police chief I Made Mangku Pastika said in Bali there was no doubt there was a link between the group at Azahari's hideaway and the triple bombing.
"It is clear that there is a link, the October 1 Bali bombings in Kuta and Jimbaran were conducted by this group," Mr Pastika said.
Police chief Sutanto earlier toured the destroyed house at Batu, where bomb squad officers found 30 wired explosive devices. They were not very powerful, he said, indicating that the group was being stymied by a lack of funds.
"To make powerful bombs, they would need a large amount of funds. At the present time, they are short on funds so that the bombs they are building are not like those in the past," he said.
Azahari and his Malaysian compatriot Noordin Mohammad Top had been sought for both Bali attacks as well as at least two other bloody attacks - on Jakarta's Marriott hotel in 2003 and on the Australian embassy in 2004.
JI expert Sidney Jones had warned recently the pair appeared to be splitting from the network to form an even more hardline force on their own.
JI's goal is to unite Indonesia, Brunei, Malaysia, Singapore and the southern Philippines in a fundamentalist Islamic state, and it uses attacks to destabilise regional governments.
Unlike the mainstream JI, Azahari's followers are simply focused on avenging the deaths of Muslims around the world by striking at the United States and its "lackeys", Mr Jones told AFP last month.
Azahari, in his late forties, studied in Australia for four years in the late 1970s before obtaining an engineering degree in Malaysia and a doctorate at England's Reading University in land management.
He became a lecturer at Malaysia's University of Technology before dropping out of sight during a crackdown on Islamic militants in 2001.
While some reports say he trained in bomb-making in Afghanistan, he was believed to have honed his skills with Muslim separatists in Mindanao in the southern Philippines in 1999.
I hope his 72 virgins all look like Helen Thomas...
i hope his 72 virgins all look like Osama... nevermind, same thing.
ping
In my view, the Indonesian government is desperately trying to turn Indonesia into a modern secular democracy. Yes, Islam would still be its major religion - but in the same way that Christianity is the major religion of the United States or Australia - perhaps a strong influence, but separated from day to day government.
They are very serious about dealing with terrorism - they truly are. Most of the people killed in the attacks in Indonesia in recent years have been Indonesian citizens.
And, there's also self interest - they want to control their country, they don't want that power in the hands of the clerics.
So, quite seriously, Indonesian authorities are working to fight terrorism.
The Bali bombers are in prison, under sentence of death or long prison terms - with the exception of Abu Bakir Bashir, but in all honesty, they couldn't prove a case against him. They tried and I won't criticise them because their legal system grants people the presumption of innocence and the right to a fair trial, even if it does mean that that man may have escaped justice.
And they do go after terrorists when they can.
They've even allowed the Australian Federal Police a more or less permanent presence in the country to help them look for these people - and for a nation to allow a foreign police force to operate on their soil is a big concession.
Indonesia has changed a lot since 1999 - I'd say it's now 60% of the way towards becoming a modern democratic nation. It could still go either way - but there are a lot of people genuinely trying to get it there.
Nice.
"Mastermind" ? Please refrain from glorifying cowardly scum...was Tim McVeigh a Mastermind? Feeble minded is more like it...
Couldn't have happened to a more deserving guy. I just hope that there were enough pieces found to be sure it's really him.
Woo hoo. Another one bites the dust.
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