Language skill helps Noordin

Language skill helps Noordin

Eva C. Komandjaja and Suherdjoko, The Jakarta Post/Jakarta/Semarang

Although the National Police are exerting their best efforts
in trying to hunt down the country's most wanted terrorist
Noordin M. Top, it is going to be difficult to find him now that
he can speak the local language.

Noordin and bombmaker Azahari bin Husin, both Malaysian
nationals, are believed to be the masterminds of a series of
terrorist bomb attacks in the country in the last few years.

Born and raised in Malaysia, the police have always believed
that Noordin could not switch from his native Malaysian to Bahasa
Indonesia.

However, National Police chief Gen. Sutanto revealed on Friday
that Noordin was able to master Javanese and Sundanese as well as
speak Bahasa Indonesia fluently.

"He still uses some Malaysian slang but he can speak the local
dialects very well," Sutanto said in a press conference held at
the National Police Headquarters.

Azahari was also able to speak Javanese fluently. He was
killed on Nov. 9 during a police raid in East Java. But,
unfortunately, Noordin, whose expertise is in recruiting young
men to become terrorists and even persuading them to carry out
suicide bombing, managed to escape during a raid on the same day
in Semarang, Central Java.

"We're doing our best to catch him. We're working with the
military and we're also counting on the public to inform us if
they notice any suspicious-looking people living in their
neighborhood," Sutanto said.

The police elite antiterror squad is still hunting down four
people who are allegedly members of Noordin's group in Central
Java following the arrest of terrorist suspect Dwi Widyarto or
Wiwid. They managed to escape the recent raid in Semarang.

Central Java Police chief Insp. Gen. Chaerul Rasjid said that
his investigators were still questioning Wiwid intensively to
gain more information about the terror network.

Meanwhile, Jakarta Police have also named three people as
suspects for harboring Azahari and Noordin. The three people were
arrested on Nov. 17 in Pekalongan, Central Java province.

Elsewhere, Sutanto also refuted a statement in an article
published by The Australian on Friday saying that the group of
Azahari and Noordin initially planned to bomb a memorial service
held in Bali for those killed in the 2002 Bali attacks, but was
deterred by high security, and instead launched three suicide
bomb attacks on Bali, that killed 23 people. The report was said
to be based on documents recovered from Azahari's last hideout.

"From the documents we recovered at Azahari's rented house in
Malang, we found no such evidence. The documents only outlined a
detailed plan of the Oct. 1 attack but nothing on bombing the
memorial service," Sutanto said.