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| Southeast Asia |
| Top has followers in Malaysia, Brunei, Indonesia, and the Philippines |
| 2006-01-30 |
| FUGITIVE Malaysian militant Noordin Top has declared himself the leader of a previously unknown regional extremist group, Indonesia's police chief said today. General Sutanto said Noordin, accused of masterminding a string of deadly attacks in Indonesia which have left hundreds dead, had named himself head of Tanzim Qaedat-al Jihad or Organisation for the Basis of Holy War. General Sutanto said the group covers Malaysia, Brunei, Indonesia, the Philippines and parts of several other Asian countries. Noordin declared himself gang boss after his compatriot Azahari Husin, a master bombmaker, was killed by police during a raid on his hideout in East Java last November, the police chief said. General Sutanto, who was speaking on the sidelines of a hearing with lawmakers, said the information came to light after police interviewed several suspects and witnesses following last October's triple suicide bombing on Bali island, which killed 20 bystanders among them four Australians. Police have so far arrested 11 suspects, mostly from Central Java province, in connection with the latest Bali suicide attacks. All were close to Noordin, General Sutanto said. He gave no further details of the organisation. Azahari and Noordin were key leaders of the al-Qaeda-linked regional terrorist network Jemaah Islamiah, but experts have said they believed the pair had split to create an even more hardline group. Sidney Jones from the International Crisis Group think-tank said she had not heard of the group's title. "But it's been clear for a while that Noordin and the bombers have split in some way from JI and this is the first indication that I've seen that the split may actually have become formal," she said. "If Noordin is claiming that he's the commander, then this may be an indication that the split has taken on a new dimension." She said Noordin and Azahari appeared to have had contacts with JI around the time of the August 2003 bombing of the JW Marriott hotel in Jakarta, which killed 12 people. But a car bomb outside the Australian embassy in the capital in September 2004, which left 10 people dead plus a suicide bomber, may have been independently carried out by the new splinter group, she said. She said that after the Christmas Eve bombing attacks of 2000 – the first major coordinated attack blamed on JI – member Imam Samudra claimed responsibility on behalf of the "Badar Battalion". This, however, was "all the while still JI." "Just because of past experience, it could be that he's making this claim without formally renouncing JI linkages," she said. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |