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.