Two Terror Suspects Killed in Poso

June 04, 2011

Two terrorism suspects believed to have been involved in the shooting last month of two police officers were killed in a raid on Saturday morning, a police spokesman said.

"The two fugitives were killed in Poso at around 11:30 a.m. on Saturday in a mountainous area and their bodies have been taken to Palu Police Hospital for further examination," National Police spokesman Chief Comr. Boy Rafli Amar said. "We seized from them long-barrel weapons that they stole from our officers."

The fugitives were previously identified as Fauzan and Dayat, alias Farok.

Three suspects are already in custody in connection with the shooting in Palu, Central Sulawesi, that left two police officers dead. They have been identified as Hariyanto and his alleged accomplice, Firdaus, and A.R., the brother-in-law of Hariyanto.

Police are investigating possible ties between the Palu suspects and Abu Tholut, a convicted terrorist believed to be part of the Al Qaeda-linked Jemaah Islamiyah and the hard-line Jamaah Anshorut Tauhid.

Tholut, who had previously fought in Afghanistan and the southern Philippines, was convicted in 2004 for the possession of firearms and bomb-making material and was sentenced to seven years in prison.

He was released on parole in 2007, before being arrested again last year for his suspected role in a paramilitary training camp in Aceh, believed to have been organized and funded by terror defendant Abu Bakar Bashir.

An officer with the National Police’s elite counterterrorism unit, Densus 88, said earlier that Hariyanto and Firdaus, the other detained suspect in the shooting, had confessed to working with Tholut when he visited Poso in 2009.

“The two suspects have told us that Tholut was in Poso around the end of 2009 and early 2010,” the source said. “He coordinated with both of them.



( this x the JG)

The Jakarta Post | Sun, 06/05/2011


After shooting two suspects in an exchange of gunfire, police are now hunting three additional suspects in the murder of two policemen in Palu.

The three suspects were identified as S, aka AW, B aka O and M aka PE.

“S is the leader, the rest provide funds,” National Police spokesman Sr. Comr. Boy Rafli Amar said on Sunday.

Boy said the group had planned to kill policemen since August last year and decided to carry out their plan in a police post in front of a BCA branch office on Jl. Emy Saelan, Palu on May 25., when they shot dead two policemen and injured another officer.

Two suspects, Aryanto and Rafli, were arrested hours after the deadly shooting, while two other suspects, Fauzan and Dayat, were killed in an exchange of gunfire on Saturday.

The National Police confirmed on Sunday that the suspects behind the killing of two policemen in Central Sulawesi were linked to a radical group founded by terror suspect Abu Bakar Bashir.

“They are members of Jemaah Ansharut Tauhid; they were trained by Abu Tholut before departing to Aceh,” National Police spokesman Chief Comr. Boy Rafli Amar said.

Tholut is a convicted terrorist who is believed to be a part of both the Al Qaeda-linked Jemaah Islamiyah and Bashir’s JAT.

The May 25 daylight attack on the police officers, who had been guarding a Bank Central Asia branch in Palu, the provincial capital, had been planned since last August, Boy said.

Plans were also developed, he said, to attack members of the police’s elite Mobile Brigade (Brimob) stationed in Natabalu, Central Sulawesi.

Boy said the group allegedly plotted a series of robberies to collect funds for jihad, before moving on to target police. Between August 2010 and the Palu attack, at least three motorcycles were stolen by the group, he said.

The attacks on the police, meanwhile, were aimed at acquiring firearms to commit more crimes, Boy said. “They are collecting resources in the form of money and weapons,” he said.

The confirmation came a day after two of the shooting suspects were killed in a police raid in Lage subdistrict in Poso, Central Sulawesi, which Boy said was based on a tip-off from a local resident.

The suspects were identified as Dayat, a k a Faruk, who allegedly used a US-made semiautomatic rifle in the Palu attack, and Fauzan, a k a Charles, who is believed to have driven the getaway vehicle and planned the attack.

“The two died in a shootout with our officers,” Boy said. He said the police urged the suspects to surrender but they “replied with gunfire directed at the officers.”

“They shot at us using the V2 [Pindad SS2 assault rifle] stolen from our officer in the BCA incident,” he added.

Two other suspects in the case are in police custody. Aryanto Haluta, a k a Jafar, who allegedly fired at the police, and Rafli, a k a Furqon, who is believed to have driven Aryanto to the scene on a motorcycle, were arrested the day after the attack.

A source with the National Police’s elite counterterrorism unit, Densus 88, previously told the Jakarta Globe that both suspects had confessed to working with Tholut when he visited Poso in 2009. Tholut is currently in police detention for his suspected links to a paramilitary training camp in Aceh.

The source, who declined to be named, said police believed Tholut was in Poso between 2009 and 2010 on the instructions of Bashir in order to regroup a terrorist cell after it was broken up in a series of police raids in 2006.

Boy said the suspected leader of the group in the Palu attack, identified by the initials S. or A.W., was still at large.


( also x the JG)