Police release sketches of five suspected Poso gunmen

Police release sketches of five suspected Poso gunmen

Irvan NR and Andi Hajramurni, The Jakarta Post, Palu/Makassar

The Central Sulawesi Police released on Friday the sketches of
five suspects still at large following recent pre-dawn assaults
on villages in Poso regency in October, which killed 10 people.

Three of the suspects are outsiders from Java, identified as
Musa, 25, Musap, 25, and Ilham, 25. The remaining two have been
named as Basri, 25, and Ramlan, 24, both local residents of Bugis
origin.

The five have been specifically accused of being involved in
the attacks on the four mainly Christian villages of Pinedapa,
Saatu, Pantangolemba and Madale in Poso Pesisir subdistrict on
Oct. 11 and 12, 2003.

However, Central Sulawesi Police chief Brig. Gen. Taufik Ridha
declined to say whether the five suspects were members of the
regional Jamaah Islamiyah terror group.

Nor did he say which part of Java the three outsiders hailed
from. However, their sketches showed the suspects all had a
similar characteristic -- a wispy beard.

The five suspects are believed to still be at large in Central
Sulawesi, Taufik said, while handing out their likenesses at his
office in the provincial capital of Palu.

Taufik said the gunmen who raided the four villages in Poso
wore balaclavas and military-style uniforms, and were equipped
with automatic weapons.

In the villages that had been assaulted, the police found
bullets and bullet cases of various calibers, he added.

The Central Sulawesi Police chief appealed to local people to
immediately report to the security authorities if they spotted
any of the five suspects.

Earlier, a joint police and military force captured 16
suspects and shot dead six others in an intensive manhunt in the
jungles of the neighboring regency of Morowali.

The same suspects were also blamed for the an earlier raid on
Beteleme village in Morowali on Oct. 9, in which three Christians
were killed and more than 30 houses set ablaze.

One of the detainees and one of the dead suspects were from
Lamongan, East Java -- the hometown of three convicted Bali
bombers, Amrozi and his brothers Ali Imron and Ali Ghufron alias
Mukhlas.

The detainees arrested for their roles in the Bali bombings
and other terror attacks across Indonesia have admitted that
Muhammadong alias Madong, one of the six Poso attackers who was
shot dead, was a member of their group, National Police chief
Gen. Da'i Bachtiar said on Thursday.

Police investigators have said there are strong indications
that the Bali and JW Marriott Hotel bombers are JI members.

Speaking in the South Sulawesi capital of Makassar on Friday
evening, Da'i said the police were trying to establish whether
the Bali terrorists and the Poso attackers worked "individually
or in an organized fashion".

Da'i and Coordinating Minister of People's Welfare Jusuf Kalla
will fly to Central Sulawesi on Saturday to hold talks with local
religious and community leaders over the fresh violence in Poso.

The Poso detainees will be charged with violating Law No.
15/2003 on terrorism, police investigators have said. This will
be the first time the antiterrorism law will have been applied to
a crime other than a bombing.

Kalla has said that JI could have been involved in the recent
deadly attacks in Poso, where sectarian violence claimed about
1,000 lives in 2000 and 2001 until he brokered a truce there.

On Thursday, suspected local JI leader Nizam Kaleb went on
trial in Palu on charges of smuggling arms and explosives for use
against Christians. He is being tried under the antiterrorism
law.

Prosecutor Firdaus Jahja said Kaleb in January and March had
picked up firearms, ammunition and explosives that had been
shipped from Java by a man called Khaeruddin, who is the JI chief
for Sulawesi, Kalimantan and the southern Philippines.

Khaeruddin had bought the material in the Philippines. Kaleb
later hid the items in the home of Fauzan Arif, which was raided
by Jakarta police in April. They found two revolvers, 6,000
rounds of ammunition and a large cache of bomb-making materials
buried behind the house.

The prosecutor said the arms and explosives were intended for
use in the bombing of churches or killing of Christians in case
Muslims in Poso came under attack.

The trial was adjourned until Monday to hear defense pleas
from Kaleb.