Indonesian police shot dead a man suspected to be leading Islamic militant Noordin Mohammad Top after an 18-hour siege in Central Java and planned to confirm his identity using DNA tests, police said yesterday.
Police in a separate raid foiled a plot to attack Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s residence outside the capital, Jakarta, with a car bomb, officials said.
Malaysian-born Top is a prime suspect in last month’s near simultaneous suicide attacks on Jakarta’s JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotels that killed nine people and wounded 53.
Yudhoyono has vowed to track down the bombers and if Top has been killed or captured it would be major coup for security forces and could reduce the chance of further attacks.
Police planned to seek a DNA sample from the family of Top to confirm his death after a shoot-out in Central Java, national police chief Bambang Hendarso Danuri told a news conference.
“We welcome if the family, the wife wants to see the face. If this is Noordin Top then please let us check the DNA. If this is done then we can say who this is,” he said.
Police have launched a series of raids since Friday and two police sources close to the investigation into the hotel attacks said a man suspected to be Top was killed in Temanggung, more than 400km southeast of Jakarta.
“He was shot dead,” one source said, adding that raids in the area had led police to a house in Bekasi, on the outskirts of the capital, where up to 500kg of bombs had been found. A correspondent in Bekasi heard a loud blast from the cordoned-off area and police said they had killed two suspected militants.
The militants were planning a suicide car bomb attack on the Yudhoyono’s residence in Bogor near Jakarta, the police chief said. He added that the militants planned to use a minibus packed with explosives to target Yudhoyono, holding him responsible for the execution of the Bali bombers last year.
Intelligence officials say Top, 40, and fellow Malaysian Azahari Husin, a bomb maker who was killed in a 2005 police raid, were leaders in the Jemaah Islamiah militant network, blamed for a series of bomb attacks in Indonesia since 2002.
Top is believed to have planned previous bomb attacks on the JW Marriott in Jakarta in 2003, on the Australian Embassy in Jakarta in 2004 and in Bali in 2005.
Security consultant Ken Conboy said Top was key to the network with his skills of recruiting suicide bombers.
“If you look at the history of violent radicalism in Indonesia, once they wrap up the main players, it goes into a period of hiatus for a time,” he said.
On Friday, police had said two men who were believed to be Top’s bodyguards had been arrested in a workshop in a market in the village of Temanggung and had led police to a small, red-roofed house in the same area, surrounded by trees and rice fields, where there was a shoot-out and overnight standoff with suspected militants.
Yesterday, after sporadic exchanges of gunfire, explosions shook the house followed by further shooting. Then TV footage showed police carrying items from inside the house, while laughing and shaking hands with colleagues.
Super Typhoon Kong-rey is the largest cyclone to impact Taiwan in 27 years, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said today. Kong-rey’s radius of maximum wind (RMW) — the distance between the center of a cyclone and its band of strongest winds — has expanded to 320km, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said. The last time a typhoon of comparable strength with an RMW larger than 300km made landfall in Taiwan was Typhoon Herb in 1996, he said. Herb made landfall between Keelung and Suao (蘇澳) in Yilan County with an RMW of 350km, Chang said. The weather station in Alishan (阿里山) recorded 1.09m of
NO WORK, CLASS: President William Lai urged people in the eastern, southern and northern parts of the country to be on alert, with Typhoon Kong-rey approaching Typhoon Kong-rey is expected to make landfall on Taiwan’s east coast today, with work and classes canceled nationwide. Packing gusts of nearly 300kph, the storm yesterday intensified into a typhoon and was expected to gain even more strength before hitting Taitung County, the US Navy’s Joint Typhoon Warning Center said. The storm is forecast to cross Taiwan’s south, enter the Taiwan Strait and head toward China, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The CWA labeled the storm a “strong typhoon,” the most powerful on its scale. Up to 1.2m of rainfall was expected in mountainous areas of eastern Taiwan and destructive winds are likely
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday at 5:30pm issued a sea warning for Typhoon Kong-rey as the storm drew closer to the east coast. As of 8pm yesterday, the storm was 670km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻) and traveling northwest at 12kph to 16kph. It was packing maximum sustained winds of 162kph and gusts of up to 198kph, the CWA said. A land warning might be issued this morning for the storm, which is expected to have the strongest impact on Taiwan from tonight to early Friday morning, the agency said. Orchid Island (Lanyu, 蘭嶼) and Green Island (綠島) canceled classes and work
KONG-REY: A woman was killed in a vehicle hit by a tree, while 205 people were injured as the storm moved across the nation and entered the Taiwan Strait Typhoon Kong-rey slammed into Taiwan yesterday as one of the biggest storms to hit the nation in decades, whipping up 10m waves, triggering floods and claiming at least one life. Kong-rey made landfall in Taitung County’s Chenggong Township (成功) at 1:40pm, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The typhoon — the first in Taiwan’s history to make landfall after mid-October — was moving north-northwest at 21kph when it hit land, CWA data showed. The fast-moving storm was packing maximum sustained winds of 184kph, with gusts of up to 227kph, CWA data showed. It was the same strength as Typhoon Gaemi, which was the most
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