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(BBC News) – Indonesian police have stormed a house in central Java believed to contain one of South-East Asia’s most wanted men. The move came after a stand-off lasting 17 hours which included exchanges of gunfire and several explosions.
Almost a day after surrounding it, members of Indonesia’s elite anti-terrorism unit entered the remote house in a rice paddy field outside Temanggung at 0945 (0245 GMT) by blowing in one of the doors.
Several minutes later, after further explosions and exchanges of gunfire, officers were seen leaving with their helmets off and shaking hands with each other.
Local media have reported that the man, Noordin Mohamed Top, was killed, however there has been no confirmation from the police. Noordin, a Malaysian citizen, is suspected of involvement in last month’s bombings of two Jakarta hotels.
Police said the anti-terror operation in the Temanggung district followed the arrest on Friday of several suspected militants loyal to Noordin.
In a separate incident, police said they had killed two suspected militants in a raid on a house in the Bekasi area, near the capital. Five others were arrested and up to 500kg of explosives were seized.
(SkyNews) – Noordin Mohammed Top is a violent jihadist, a master bomb-maker, and the leader of the most extreme splinter group of the Jemaah Islamiyah terror network.
Police have been studying an unexploded device and bomb-making materials found in the suspects’ “control centre” in room 1808 of the JW Marriott hotel in the capital Jakarta.
(The Guardian) – He probably didn’t see it coming. Baitullah Mehsud was hooked up to a drip in a remote farmhouse in Pakistan’s tribal badlands, his second wife by his side, being treated by a trusted doctor for a long-standing kidney ailment.
Then a pair of Hellfire missiles slammed through the roof, fired from a CIA-operated drone hovering in the inky sky. The Taliban commander, his wife, brother and several bodyguards perished, Rehman Malik, Pakistan’s interior minister, said today.
Death by drone may be silent, but news of Mehsud’s demise was loudly hailed as a signal victory for Pakistan in its rocky struggle against violent extremism.
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"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence.".
(Deutsche Welle) – Afghan officials say Taliban fighters have returned to the northern province of Kunduz. This comes only days after the end of a joint German and Afghan offensive to push back Taliban influence ahead of Afghan elections.
“When the operation began, the leaders of the Taliban fled to neighboring provinces and other areas. Others simply hid their weapons and blended in with the local population,” said Abdul Wahid Omarkehl, administrative chief in the Char Darah district in Kunduz province.
“Now, they have just taken their weapons back out again and those who fled to neighboring provinces have come back after the end of the operation.”
It was the biggest offensive by the German military in Afghanistan so far. Around 300 Bundeswehr troops, alongside 900 Afghan security forces, were seeking to push back Taliban-led insurgents in the northern province of Kunduz ahead of the country’s presidential elections on August 20.
Nothing in comparison to Helmand province where thousands of British and US troops made a combined attack on the Taliban.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence.".
35 Announced Dead on Tues. including 3 US Troops;
Election could go to Second Round
500 Afghan troops and US Marines on Wednesday morning launched an assault on the long-time Taliban stronghold of Dahaneh in the southern Helmand province. They faced heavy resistance, though mostly from light arms, and appear to have taken the city center. They discovered some 60 lbs. of heroin, a chief means whereby the Taliban fund their resistance to the Karzai government.
Shabakah-‘i Ittila’-Rasani-yi Afghanistan reports in Dari Persian that on Tuesday, Hamid Karzai held a huge rally in the eastern Pashtun city of Jalalabad, in which thousands of Pashtuns chanted slogans pledging to defend him. The paper writes that the rally was more like a demonstration than just a political gathering, and that some observers worried that such heated crowds could contribute to deteriorating security in the country.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."Local media have reported that the man, Noordin Mohamed Top, was killed, however there has been no confirmation from the police.
Florist, not Noordin Top