The master bomb maker who manufactured the Bali bomb for terror network Jemaah Islamiah may be hiding out in Jakarta and planning fresh attacks on targets including the Indonesian capital’s Australian International School. Former Malaysian academic and British-trained engineer Dr Azahari and fellow JI bomb maker Noordin Mohammad Top have so far eluded Indonesian police, despite a nationwide manhunt. The pair, who narrowly escaped a police raid on their rented house in Bandung in October, are suspected of building the bombs used in last year’s Bali attacks and the apparent suicide blast at the JW Marriott Hotel in Jakarta in August. National Police chief General Dai Bachtiar said police had identified their hideouts and were waiting for the right time to capture the pair — the most senior suspected JI members still on the run. But an Indonesian police investigator, who refused to be identified, said authorities believed the Australian International School, in south Jakarta, was now a prime target for Dr Azahari and JI, along with supermarkets used by westerners and branches of the US-based Citibank. "This group is not fooling around," he told local newspapers. "At first I asked myself, why these school kids must become the target. It turns out to be it’s the most effective way to expel foreigners from Indonesia. If the kids were threatened, then the parents would leave too."
| Kind of like Riyadh, huh? |
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