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Dead or alive? Fates of 2 terror chieftains in doubt
(China Daily)
Updated: 2009-08-10 09:43

Dead or alive? Fates of 2 terror chieftains in doubt
Police gather outside a house used as a militant hideout after police raided it in Temanggung, central Java Saturday August 8, 2009. [Agencies]

Top formed a violent wing of the Jemaah Islamiah militant network and is suspected of masterminding previous bomb attacks on the JW Marriott in Jakarta in 2003, on the Australian Embassy in Jakarta in 2004 and in Bali in 2005.

A police source said authorities had started to seek DNA samples from Top's children and other relatives.

"The standard process takes about one week at the earliest if we have necessary references," Brigadier General Eddy Saparwoko of Indonesia's disaster victim identification unit told Reuters.

Five suspects were detained in Saturday's raids and two shot dead when police found a cache of bombs and a vehicle primed with explosives in Bekasi near Jakarta.

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Police chief Bambang Hendarso Danuri said on Saturday that Top had chaired a meeting on April 30 where a plot was hatched to carry out a suicide attack on the Yudhoyono's residence using a minibus packed with explosives in retaliation for the execution of the Bali bombers last year.

"If he's still alive then I don't think we can say the network has been hugely damaged yet, there's certainly more members out there," Jones said. "What's worrisome is that they cover a fairly wide geographic area."

The security operations in Indonesia are being closely watched in Australia, which lost 88 citizens in the 2002 bombings on Bali nightclubs and three in last month's Marriott attack.

"It is still unclear as to who precisely has been killed and who has been apprehended," Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said in Canberra, adding he hoped to hold talks with Yudhoyono later in the day.

Reuters - AP

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