Police capture alleged JI operations chief
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta/Denpasar
In what is being hailed as a major breakthrough, police investigating the deadly Bali bombings arrested on Tuesday night Mukhlas, alias Ali Gufron, the alleged chief of regional terror network Jamaah Islamiyah (JI).
National Police Detective Chief Insp. Gen. Erwin Mappaseng told journalists on Wednesday that police arrested nine people, including Mukhlas and his wife Khodijah, in the Central Java town of Klaten on Tuesday.
"We have managed to arrest several people, including the person wanted by Indonesian, Malaysian and Singaporean police. He is Mukhlas or Ali Ghufron," Erwin said.
The seven others were named as Hermiyanto, Najib Nawir, Rahmat Yusuf, Muhammad Nuri, Wahyuningsih, Lili Mustofa and Said Sungkar.
Police seized a pistol and 12 bullets during Mukhlas's arrest.
Mukhlas is the elder brother of Amrozi, 40, one of the key suspects in the Oct. 12 Bali attack. Amrozi is being held at Bali Police Headquarters.
Erwin said Mukhlas was likely involved in the Bali attack, but he did not elaborate.
The Oct. 12 bombing left more than 190 people dead and more than 300, mainly foreign tourists, injured.
Speaking about other arrested suspects, Erwin said Hermiyanto helped Samudra and another suspect Dulmatin, a bomb maker who is still at large, rent a house in Central Java.
Wahyuningsih, meanwhile, is the wife of another Bali bomb suspect Umar alias Patek, Erwin said.
The capture of Mukhlas and his accomplices marked another success of the multinational joint investigation team, after the earlier arrests of Amrozi and the alleged mastermind of the blasts, Imam Samudra.
Mukhlas is believed to have replaced Hambali as JI's operations chief in Southeast Asia. Hambali, an Indonesian whose birth name is Riduan Isamuddin, is believed to be a senior al- Qaeda operative. He is being hunted by Indonesia and a number of other countries for terrorism charges.
National Police said earlier that Hambali was thought to have fled the region after the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States and may have gone to Pakistan.
Several foreign leaders and media have accused JI of being involved in the Bali blasts even though Amrozi and Samudra have denied connections with the organization, which the United Nations recently put on its list of banned terrorist groups.
Samudra, according to his lawyers, has insisted that he was the mastermind of the Bali bombings although he had discussed the plans with Hambali to bomb the resort island.
Brig. Gen. Edward Aritonang, spokesman of the team investigating the Bali blasts, said on Wednesday that Samudra would be flown from Jakarta to Bali on Thursday for further questioning "if everything goes as planned".
"He will be taken on a commercial plane, so we will have to provide extra security for the flight," he told a teleconference with journalists in the Bali capital of Denpasar.
Samudra was captured at the Merak ferry port in Banten on Nov. 21, and is being detained in Jakarta for interrogations over his involvement in previous bombings across Indonesia.
The police have appeared to focus their investigation on the roles of Samudra, Amrozi and their accomplices in the bomb blasts, but have neglected other possible explanations such as solving the mystery behind the explosives used in the bombing, including RDX found at the bomb site.
So far, the police have not explained the sources of these explosives. Samudra and Amrozi have denied any knowledge of RDX, allegedly saying they used TNT and other chemicals to make the bombs.