Arrest of terrorist suspect sparks rampage in Maluku

M. Azis Tunny, The Jakarta Post, Ambon

Enraged by the arrest of terror suspect Syarif Tarabubun, hundreds of people attacked and burned down on Monday a Muslim boarding school believed to have been harboring terrorists.

The residents of the Muslim subdistrict of Haya, Central Maluku, went on a rampage after they learned that the school principal, Batar, had allegedly harbored Syarif and other terrorists who had been involved in terror activities in the formerly riot torn city of Ambon.

Central Maluku Police chief Adj. Sr. Comr. Ngurah Gunawan said that no fatalities had been reported in the incident.

The police officer said Batar was not in the school at the time of the incident as he had already left the area last year after he became the target of a police investigation for his alleged key role in an attack in Wamkana subdistrict, Buru regency in May last year, leaving three civilians dead.

Of five suspects in the case, only Batar and another person, Nurdin, are still at large while three other suspects have been arrested. These three have admitted to police investigators that they were involved in series of attacks in Maluku, particularly Ambon city. "Batar has been our priority. We received a tip-off that he already recruited other persons to mount terror attacks," said Ngurah Gunawan.

In a separate development, police investigators in Ambon are still questioning Syarif Tarabubun, who is also a police officer, for his role in an armed attack on a cafe in Ambon that killed two people. Syarif and 16 other people were arrested on Friday last week for their alleged roles in attacks in Ambon city over the past year.

Syarif was also named a suspect in February two years ago for allegedly masterminding the killing of civilians Tengku Fauzi Hasbi, Edy Saputra and Achmad Saridu.

The three were abducted from a hotel in the Waihaong area, Ambon city, and were then murdered. Syarif and the three dead people were believed to have all been members of a radical group affiliated to regional terror network Jamaah Islamiyah, but an internal rift led Syarif to commit the murders. Syarif was arrested in May 2003, but was released after a court found him not guilty.

The preliminary investigation into Syarif and the other 16 persons arrested recently in Haya subdistrict, Central Maluku, has found that they knew leading terrorists Azahari, Noordin M. Top and Imam Samudera. Azahari was killed in a raid in Malang, East Java, recently while Noordin is still at large. Imam Samudera was convicted for the first Bali bombings and he is now on death row.

During questioning, Syarif and the other gang members admitted that the three terrorists had trained them in Haya in 2000 when sectarian conflict was tearing Maluku apart.

Ambon and other islands in Maluku were the scene of Muslim- Christian violence between 1999 and 2002 that left thousands of people dead. The conflict also drove hundreds of thousands of people from Maluku province. A government-sponsored peace pact in 2002 has restored a semblance of normality in the area but sporadic bombings and attacks still persist.