Indonesian terrorist Umar Patek involved in 2002 Bali bombing
JAKARTA: Pakistan yesterday confirmed that it had arrested top Indonesian terrorist Umar Patek. The confirmation came shortly after the Indonesian police said they would dispatch a team to Pakistan to confirm the arrest.
'Yes, it is confirmed we have arrested him, he is in Pakistan and he is being interrogated,' a Pakistani security official told Agence France- Presse (AFP).
But there was no word on when or where exactly he was nabbed.
Pakistani security officials, quoted by the Associated Press (AP), said he was caught after a tip-off from the US Central Intelligence Agency.
'The CIA tipped us off that he might be travelling here,' one official said, but he stressed that it was a 'solely Pakistani operation'.
Another official said Patek was being questioned by Pakistani agents, but that he would 'eventually' be handed over to the Indonesians. 'It is our policy to send them back to their country of origin,' he said.
The CIA would presumably like to have access to Patek, AP said, but the Pakistani officer said this would happen only with the written consent of Indonesia.
News reports late on Tuesday night said 40-year-old Patek - a field commander in the 2002 Bali bombing which killed 202 people - had been captured along with members of a local militant group.
A skilled explosives expert, Patek was a senior leader in the now-splintered Jemaah Islamiah (JI) network. He escaped Indonesia some time in 2003, fleeing to Mindanao in the southern Philippines with electronics and bomb-making expert Dulmatin, who was killed in a police raid on the outskirts of Jakarta a year ago.
Dulmatin's death led police to believe Patek was also in the country, although efforts to sniff him out yielded little.
Speaking to reporters yesterday on the sidelines of a conference in Bali, police chief detective Ito Sumardi said police had received news of Patek's capture 'a few days ago'.
The Jakarta Post also quoted him as saying it was likely Patek had been in Indonesia and left Jakarta on a fake passport, with strong indications he had passed through Bangkok en route to Pakistan. However, the country's top counter-terrorism official, Mr Ansyaad Mbai, struck a more cautious note about reports of Patek's capture. He said Indonesian intelligence officials would have to carefully verify the identity of the man who had been captured.
But AFP quoted him as saying: 'We're not surprised if he's in Pakistan as these terrorists move from country to country.'
Analysts yesterday highlighted the importance of Patek's reported arrest, saying he had the potential to rally extremists and lead attacks.
Military officials in the Philippines also hailed reports of his capture as a victory in the regional battle against terrorism.
International Crisis Group analyst Sidney Jones said Patek could provide crucial information on extremist groups in the Philippines and their contact with other groups in South-east Asia and South Asia.
'It depends on whether he stopped in Indonesia and what kind of contacts he made. If it turns out that he went to Pakistan to open channels for training for South-east Asian groups... or was acting as a broker between these groups and the Taleban and Al-Qaeda, then that would be significant,' she said.
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