Two suspected militants killed by Indonesian police in shoot-out

JAKARTA — The Indonesian police yesterday shot dead two suspected terrorists with links to the country’s most-wanted militant.

They were among four who were ambushed, while waiting for a bus in the town of Tulungagung in East Java province after days of surveillance, said national police spokesman Major-General Ronny Frengky Sompie. He added that they were wanted for their alleged involvement in terrorism activities in Java, the Central Sulawesi district of Poso, as well as Bali and north Sumatra.

The police opened fired when the suspects resisted arrest. One man drew a gun from a backpack and began shooting at officers, another police spokesman, Brigadier-General Boy Rafli Amar, told reporters. The police said the backpack also contained a home-made bomb.

Two of the men were taken alive and are being questioned. Brig-Gen Amar said all four are suspected of being involved with Santoso, leader of the militant group Mujahidin Indonesia Timur. He is also a former member of the South-east Asian branch of Al Qaeda, Jemaah Islamiyah, which was responsible for Indonesia’s worst-ever terrorist attack in Bali in 2002.

Head of Indonesia’s counter-terrorism agency Ansyaad Mbai said they are also linked to a suicide bombing in central Sulawesi island in June.

Santoso’s whereabouts remain unknown, but in the past, he has been active in central Sulawesi, a hilly region long dogged by militant violence.

The counter-terrorism police have increasingly focused their efforts on the region after disrupting major terrorist activities elsewhere in northern Sumatra and Central Java in recent years.

Indonesia has already waged a number of operations this year, including sweeping raids across Java island in May, in which the police killed seven suspected terrorists and arrested dozens more.

The operation yesterday came less than two weeks after nine terrorists escaped along with more than 100 other convicts from a jail in Medan. Four of the terrorists remain at large.

Indonesia suffered large-scale bombings in the early 2000s, but ramped-up counter-terrorism efforts since the Bali bombing have diminished the capacity of the terror networks that have survived, and they have turned to smaller attacks against police and officials.