Tom Allard, Jakarta – Indonesian police believe they have killed the two most wanted terrorists in the country after a raid on a boarding house where militants linked to the July hotel bombings in Jakarta were hiding.
The suspects – Saifuddin Jaelani and his brother Mohamad Syahrir – were tracked to the house in Ciputat, near the Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University on Jakarta's outskirts.
Just after people left for Friday prayers, police secured the area and then raided rooms on the second floor of the boarding house, resulting in a short but intense gun battle.
A police spokesman, Nanan Soakarna, told reporters last night that two men – believed to be Jaelani and Syahrir – died in the raid. "It is our suspicion obtained from witness and other information we have collected," he said, adding final confirmation would have to wait until forensic tests had been completed.
Seven small bombs were found in the boarding house, he said. The raid was sparked after the arrest early yesterday morning of another suspected terrorist, Fajar. Witnesses reported gunfire and loud explosions accompanying the police action.
If the deaths of the two men are confirmed, the raid is the latest counter-terrorism coup by Indonesian police, who have gone a long way to dismantling the network of violent extremists who have killed hundreds across the archipelago since the first Bali bombings of 2002.
Jaelani and Syahrir were key organisers of the suicide bombings of the Ritz Carlton and JW Marriott hotels in July that killed seven bystanders, including three Australians. Jaelani recruited the two suicide bombers and was heard chanting "Destruction to America. Destruction to Australia. Destruction to Indonesia" on video footage taken just before the twin blasts as the bombers had a picnic and exercised in a park across the road from the hotels.
He was also believed to have assumed control of the terrorist network run by Noordin Mohammad Top, the Malaysian-born Islamic extremist who orchestrated a string of attacks over six years in Indonesia and was killed only last month.
In a letter purported to have been written by Jaelani and released by police, he boasted of how extensive the terrorist network was, with individuals assigned to a variety of tasks, from bomb-making to recruitment and raising finances. The letter was written after the terrorist attacks.
Jaelani spent four years studying in Yemen, where he was believed to have forged links with Middle Eastern extremist groups, possibly including al-Qaeda. He was a persuasive recruiter, who targeted disenfranchised and religious young men, separated them from their friends and convinced them that killing civilians was a justified response to the West's alleged "war on Islam".
Syahrir – a former technician with the national airline, Garuda – was a bomb-making expert who police believed help construct the two explosive devices that devastated the Marriott and Ritz Carlton hotels.
Both men frequented mosques and earned money by selling Islamic medicines and setting up health clinics based on remedies that date back to the lifetime of the prophet Muhammad more than 1400 years ago.
The Islamic boarding house raided by police was an ideal hiding place for fugitives. Boarders are usually allowed to keep to themselves and authorities do not monitor them closely.