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.