One of Asia's most wanted terrorists was poised to launch a fresh series of blasts when he was killed by police this week, Indonesia said yesterday, as details emerged of a video made by three suicide bombers who attacked restaurants in Bali last month.
Officers found documents in the safe house of explosives expert Azahari bin Husin -- a Malaysian accused of coordinating a key role in four deadly strikes in Indonesia since 2002 -- detailing plans for more attacks, police spokesman Major General Aryanto Budihardjo said.
"The police found more bombs in his house," President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono told a gathering of international parliamentarians in Jakarta. "Apparently we shot Azahari at a time when he was preparing for his next attacks."
Police shot and killed Azahari during a raid on his hide-out in Malang, east Java, on Wednesday. Another militant sheltering in the house with him blew himself up as police moved in.
Kompas daily quoted an unnamed police officer as saying that Azahari planned coordinated strikes later this month on schools and churches in cities across the country. Budihardjo declined to comment on the report.
Using intelligence gleaned from Azahari's house, police are stepping up their hunt for fellow Malaysian militant Noordin Mohamad Top, who they say narrowly escaped capture last week in a raid on his hide-out in the central Javanese town of Semarang.
Authorities say Noordin and Azahari are key leaders of the al-Qaeda-linked group Jemaah Islamiyah, which is believed to be responsible for the 2002 attacks in Bali that killed 202 people, as well triple suicide strikes there last month that killed 20 people.
Police found a video recording in Noordin's safe-house in which the three attackers told their families they were prepared to die.
"We can clearly hear and see their confessions to their families that they [were] ready to perform an act they considered to be holy," said information minister Sofyan Djalil, who watched the video at a Cabinet meeting on Friday.
Djalil said the video was made for the "internal use" of the group and police did not believe Noordin intended to distribute it to the media as militant groups in the Middle East often do.
It is believed to be the first time that suicide attackers in Indonesia have made a video recording before launching an attack.
Jemaah Islamiyah, which allegedly wants to establish an Islamic state spanning Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and the southern Philippines, has been weakened in recent years by a regional crackdown that has resulted in dozens of arrests.
When Shanghai-based designer Guo Qingshan posted a vacation photo on Valentine’s Day and captioned it “Puppy Mountain,” it became a sensation in China and even created a tourist destination. Guo had gone on a hike while visiting his hometown of Yichang in central China’s Hubei Province late last month. When reviewing the photographs, he saw something he had not noticed before: A mountain shaped like a dog’s head rested on the ground next to the Yangtze River, its snout perched at the water’s edge. “It was so magical and cute. I was so excited and happy when I discovered it,” Guo said.
TURNAROUND: The Liberal Party had trailed the Conservatives by a wide margin, but that was before Trump threatened to make Canada the US’ 51st state Canada’s ruling Liberals, who a few weeks ago looked certain to lose an election this year, are mounting a major comeback amid the threat of US tariffs and are tied with their rival Conservatives, according to three new polls. An Ipsos survey released late on Tuesday showed that the left-leaning Liberals have 38 percent public support and the official opposition center-right Conservatives have 36 percent. The Liberals have overturned a 26-point deficit in six weeks, and run advertisements comparing the Conservative leader to Trump. The Conservative strategy had long been to attack unpopular Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, but last month he
Chinese authorities said they began live-fire exercises in the Gulf of Tonkin on Monday, only days after Vietnam announced a new line marking what it considers its territory in the body of water between the nations. The Chinese Maritime Safety Administration said the exercises would be focused on the Beibu Gulf area, closer to the Chinese side of the Gulf of Tonkin, and would run until tomorrow evening. It gave no further details, but the drills follow an announcement last week by Vietnam establishing a baseline used to calculate the width of its territorial waters in the Gulf of Tonkin. State-run Vietnam News
PROBE: Last week, Romanian prosecutors launched a criminal investigation against presidential candidate Calin Georgescu accusing him of supporting fascist groups Tens of thousands of protesters gathered in Romania’s capital on Saturday in the latest anti-government demonstration by far-right groups after a top court canceled a presidential election in the EU country last year. Protesters converged in front of the government building in Bucharest, waving Romania’s tricolor flags and chanting slogans such as “down with the government” and “thieves.” Many expressed support for Calin Georgescu, who emerged as the frontrunner in December’s canceled election, and demanded they be resumed from the second round. George Simion, the leader of the far-right Alliance for the Unity of Romanians (AUR), which organized the protest,
RSS