Dulmatin not killed in RP air strike

Eva C. Komandjaja, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The National Police finally confirmed on Wednesday that Dulmatin, a key terror suspect, had not been killed during air strikes by the Philippine military in southern Mindanao on Jan. 26, 2005.

An officer attached to Interpol in Indonesia, Brig. Gen. Sisno Adiwinoto, said that he had received a report from an international monitoring team comprising military attaches from Malaysia and Brunei Darussalam that Dulmatin had not been killed.

Dulmatin is reportedly an expert on assembling bombs. He has also been linked to the 2002 Bali bombings and the JW Marriott bombing in 2003.

"There was nobody killed in the strike. Based on reports that we received on Jan. 31, there was only one person injured and that was a local resident," Sisno said.

The attack was conducted by the Philippine military targeting a suspected meeting of regional Al-Qaeda-linked group leaders, including leaders from Jamaah Islamiyah (JI), in Butilan Marsh and Datupiang Mangindanao in the southern Mindanao area around 40 kilometers from Davao City.

Dulmatin and his colleague Umar Patek were believed to be attending the meeting. Previous press reports quoted a Philippine military official as saying that he believed the two had been killed during the air strike, along with 40 rebels.

Sisno, however, said that no members of the Philippine Abu Sayyaf rebel group or JI were killed during the attack.

"Neither were there any Indonesian citizens killed or injured during the attack," Sisno said.

Deputy Chief of Detectives Insp. Gen. Dadang Garnida made similar comments, saying that the report that Dulmatin had been killed was not based on hard facts.

"The information was unclear and unreliable," Dadang said.

Dadang added that the police would continue to hunt Dulmatin and other terrorists, whether hiding inside or outside the country.

Separately, Singaporean Deputy Prime Minister Tony Tan visited National Police chief Gen. Da'i Bachtiar at National Police Headquarters to discuss counterterrorism cooperation between the two countries.

"We both agree that terrorism is a crime that knows no borders, and which cannot be handled by one country only. Therefore, we need help from other countries, such as Singapore," Da'i said.

Da'i explained that cooperation was necessary to apprehend terror suspects such as Azahari bin Husin and Noordin M. Top, who are believed to be the masterminds behind several bombings in Jakarta and Bali.

"These people can hop from one country to another easily. We have to prevent them from doing so by tightening up our borders," Da'i said.

However, he admitted that he and Tan had not discussed the possibility of an extradition agreement between Singapore and Indonesia.