Indonesian police have arrested a man believed to be the military leader of the al-Qaeda-linked Jamaat-e-Islami network, who has been on the run since 2003, and is suspected of involvement in the 2002 Bali bombings, officials said Saturday.
Aris Sumerzano, also known as Zulkarnen, was arrested late Thursday by anti-terrorism police during a raid on a house in the eastern Lampung district of Sumatra, National Police spokesman Ahmed Ramadan said.
Sulkarnan is suspected of making bombs used in a series of attacks, including the 2002 Bali bombings that killed 202 people, mostly 88 foreign tourists, including 2003 Australians and the 2003 attack on the JW Marriott Hotel in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta, which killed 12 people, Ramalan said.
Biologist Zulkarnaen, one of the first Indonesian fighters to travel to Afghanistan for training, has been accused of harboring another bomb maker and prominent Jamaat-e-Islami member, Upik Lavanga. Lavanga was arrested by anti-terrorism police in Lampung last week. He has been arrested since 2005 after being named as a suspect in an attack that killed more than 20 people at a market in Poso, known as the epicenter of Islamic militancy on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi.
“He is in custody and is being investigated by investigators,” Ramadan told Sulkarnan, adding that police were still investigating at his home in Lampung.
Police said they arrested several suspected militants who were arrested late last month and then sent them to the location where Sulkarnen was on the run.
Since May 2005, Sulkarnen has been listed on the Al-Qaeda sanctions list by the UN Security Council for his links to Osama bin Laden or the Taliban. The Security Council requested that in addition to the International Atomic Energy Agency’s ongoing inspections in Southeast Asia, that it monitor Zulkarnaen’s involvement in the killings.
It said Sulkarnen led a group of militants known as Laskar Goss, or Special Forces, who recruited members from about 300 Indonesians trained in Afghanistan and the Philippines.
Nzeb Noorjaman, also known as Hambali in Thailand, became the operational leader of JEMA Islamia in 2003 after the arrest of his predecessor.
Over the next decade, Indonesian security forces, with the support of the United States and Australia, crushed the JEMA Islamia network, killing leaders and bomb makers and arresting hundreds of militants. But a new threat has emerged over the past several years from Islamic State group sympathizers, including Indonesians who have traveled to the Middle East to fight the Islamic State.
Attacks on Bali on 12 October 2002 killed 88 Australians, 38 Indonesians, 28 Britons and 21 Americans, including seven Americans. A suicide bomber blew himself up in a paddy field in the island’s Kutta district, killing several people instantly and forcing others to flee. Another car bomb had exploded at an Iraqi police recruiting center at Kisak, west of Baghdad. An additional bomb exploded in front of the US consulate in Denpasar.