Jakarta (AsiaNews) – Jemaah Islamiyah, the al-Qaeda linked terrorist organisation operating in South-East Asia, was dealt a serious blow after Indonesian police confirmed today that it had arrested its alleged military leader, Abu Dujana. Indonesia’s most wanted man was captured last Saturday by the country’s anti-terrorist unit, Densus-88, along with seven other suspects during a operation in Central Java.
Police did not immediately confirm that man known as Mahfud was in fact Abu Dujana because he operated under so many different aliases that it took several days to determine his identity, which was finally confirmed by fingerprinting and DNA tests.
The 39-year-old was wanted for his involvement in the 2002 Bali bombings, the 2004 attack on the Australian embassy in Jakarta as well as a car bombing at the city's Marriot hotel a year earlier.
After interrogating all the suspects it was clear that Abu Dujana was the military chief of Jemaah Islamiyah, said national police spokesman Sisno Adiwinoto during a press conference.
Dujana was already the organisation’s top military operative four years ago.
With the death last year of Malaysian-born Azahari bin Husin, killed in a raid in East Java, he had become Indonesia’s most wanted terrorist.
However not much is known about his past. It is alleged that he was trained in 1986 in Pakistan along with other mujahideen and that he fought in the southern Philippines in the ranks of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).
Australian television put him at the top of the list of the five most dangerous terrorists in South-East Asia. The others are Dulmatin, Noordin Moh Top, Djulkarnaen and Aris Munandar.