Police know of Azahari and Noordin hideouts: Police chief

Kurniawan Hari, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

National Police chief Gen. Da'i Bachtiar said on Wednesday the police were waiting for the right time to capture prime terror suspects Azahari and Noordin Moch. Top as their hideouts had already been identified.

Da'i said the police were intensifying the manhunt.

"It (their arrest) is just a matter of time. We can always find where they are," Da'i told a hearing with House of Representatives' security commission.

Azahari and Noordin narrowly escaped a police raid on their rented house in Bandung on Oct. 29. The two are wanted for their alleged roles in the bomb attacks on the JW Marriott Hotel in Jakarta in August this year and two nightclubs in Bali in October last year.

The Bali blasts killed 202 people, mostly foreign holiday- makers, while the hotel bombing claimed 12 lives.

Da'i said the two terrorist suspects were the key leaders of the terrorist network. But Da'i warned that another two prime suspects, Zulkarnaen and Dulmatin, remained at large.

The police team captured two suspects in the hotel bombing, identified as Tohir, 29, and Ismail, 23, near a hotel in Cirebon, West Java, on Oct. 29.

The police also seized five grenades, a passport belonging to Tohir, and three ID cards.

The interrogation of Ismail and Tohir revealed that the actors behind the bombing of the JW Marriott Hotel on Aug. 5 were Azahari, Noordin, Ismail, Tohir and Asmar Latinsani, the bomber, who also died in the blast.

Noordin was the mastermind and the one who funded the terrorist attack while Azahari was the one who prepared the explosives.

The police had been informed about the hideout of Azahari and Noordin, but decided to delay launching a raid as the suspects were armed with bombs and lived in crowded area.

Azahari and Noordin escaped when police were evacuating local people.

The police confiscated six bombs, 3.5 kilograms of TNT and 14 detonators from Tohir and Ismail.

Da'i renewed his call to the public to join in the manhunt for Azahari and Noordin. According to the police chief, the two suspects often lived in rented houses in places where local people paid little heed to newcomers.

The police have arrested around 100 terrorist suspects, including more than 30 who were implicated in the Bali bombings and 12 in connection with the hotel attack.

Three Bali bombers are on the death row and 26 have been jailed for terms ranging from three years to life.