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| Southeast Asia | |
| Top seen as unlikely to flee Indonesia | |
| 2006-05-25 | |
| One of Asia's top terror suspects, who is hiding in Indonesia, is unlikely to flee the country because regional police are keeping a close watch for him, Indonesia's police chief said on Tuesday. Indonesian police raided a militant safehouse on Java island on April 29 but the main target, Noordin Mat Top, a Malaysian and one of Asia's most wanted men, escaped. "He cannot flee the country because of cooperation among ASEAN countries to nab him," National Police Chief General Sutanto said in Malaysia. "He is a threat to all nations. There is no sign yet that he has fled the country."
Indonesia has suffered from several attacks in recent years blamed by police and intelligence officials on the militant Southeast Asian network Jemaah Islamiah, linked to al Qaeda. Noordin was one of the group's leaders, police say, although recently he may have formed his own organisation. The deadliest bombing attack tied to Top and Jemaah Islamiah was in Bali in 2002, when 202 people, mostly foreign tourists, were killed. Other attacks include blasts at a luxury hotel and the Australian embassy in Jakarta, and a second attack in Bali last year. Sutanto said the ability of any militant group to mount fresh attacks in Indonesia had greatly been reduced following a police crackdown and dwindling support for their cause. "Now their capability is reducing and we hope that it will reduce further," he said. Malaysia's police chief said the ASEAN chiefs would soon launch a new electronic database system to keep better track of the whereabouts of criminals in the region. "You have access to information such as missing passports," Bakri Omar said. "That would facilitate the tracking down of criminals, trans-border crimes." | |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |