Stephen Coates – Asian terror suspect Noordin Mohammed Top is probably still at large in Indonesia despite reports of his death, police said Monday, even as the net closed around his extremist network.
Fingerprint analysis confirmed that a man killed by police special forces in a raid on a suspected Noordin hideout on the weekend was not the Malaysian Islamist, a police source involved in the investigation told AFP.
"It's not him. We know from his facial structure as well as his fingerprints," the source said, requesting anonymity. "We're continuing to track his whereabouts."
Noordin's death has not been formally ruled out, however, and police are publicly sticking to the line that DNA tests are required. "Whoever the man is, it should be proved in a scientific way," national police spokesman Nanan Soekarna said.
Photographs of the bullet- and shrapnel-riddled body dragged from the remote farmhouse in Central Java at the end of a 17-hour siege on Saturday morning do not resemble Noordin, police sources and independent experts said.
"The picture of the guy doesn't bear any resemblance," said Jakarta-based security analyst Sidney Jones, of the International Crisis Group.
Noordin, 40, is wanted for multiple suicide bombings against "iconic" Western targets in Indonesia since 2003 which have killed around 50 people and injured hundreds.
He is the self-proclaimed leader of "Al-Qaeda in the Malay Archipelago", an offshoot of the Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) regional terror group responsible for the 2002 Bali attacks which killed more than 200 people.
The twin suicide blasts at the JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotels in Jakarta on July 17, which killed nine people including six foreigners and the bombers, are believed to be his first major strike since 2005.
It was unclear whether Noordin was ever in the Central Java house that was besieged overnight Friday, but the counter-terrorist police source indicated that the Malaysian might have escaped before the police arrived. "We were not as quick as him," he said, without elaborating.
Soekarna said two men arrested in the nearby village of Beji on Friday had told police that Noordin was in the house, and someone inside was heard to call out "'Yes, I'm Noordin Top'" during the siege.
Noordin escaped two earlier armed assaults on his hideouts, and his legend will only grow among his disciples and on Islamist websites if he has slipped away again.
Pressure will also mount on US-trained counter-terrorism forces to track him down before he can do further damage to Indonesia's hard-earned image as a stable and moderate Muslim-majority country.
"It's a huge disappointment – the police were convinced they had Noordin in that house," Jones said, adding, however, that they could take heart from other recent arrests and the discovery of a major bomb factory outside Jakarta.
Five of Noordin's alleged accomplices have been arrested in recent days, and two men described by police as would-be suicide bombers were killed Saturday in a raid on a house in Bekasi, outside Jakarta, packed with bomb-making material.
Police said the would-be bombers were planning to detonate a truck rigged with explosives at President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's main residence, which is a 12-minute drive away.
The attack, timed around Indonesia's Independence Day on August 17, had been ordered by Noordin during a meeting on April 30 as revenge for the execution of three of the Bali bombers late last year, they said.
One of the men killed in Bekasi was identified as Air Setiawan, a Noordin acolyte who was involved in planning the suicide truck bombing of the Australian embassy in 2004.
The two men who blew themselves up at the Jakarta hotels on July 17 had also been identified, while another alleged Noordin accomplice was arrested on July 24 as he prepared a follow-up attack.
Information on the Bekasi cell and the Central Java safe-house was gained from Amir Abdillah, arrested last Thursday and suspected of helping to carry out the hotel attacks.
Police said they were also seeking four other Noordin followers, including one identified only as SJ who was the network's chief recruiter.