INDONESIA: Abu Dujana's capture confirmed
Updated
Indonesian police have confirmed the capture of Abu Dujana, the man they believe heads the Jemaah Islamiyah organisation, which has been blamed for the Bali bombings. The confirmation came after days of uncertainty over whether he was among a number of suspected terrorists arrested in Central Java over the weekend. And while his arrest is being hailed as a significant breakthrough, not everyone is convinced Abu Dujana is JI's number one man.
Presenter: Rob Sharp
Speakers: Sidney Jones, the Indonesian Director for the International Crisis Group
JONES: I think it's extremely important and I think the question now is how much information he will give to the police.
SHARP: How will they extract information from him?
JONES: I don't know but my guess is that he would be better treated than people at the lower end of the spectrum. So I'm not sure that this is a case where you will have information extracted by torture. In part because it's important for the information (a) to be absolutely valid and sometimes information extracted by torture isn't, and secondly because they may want to see if they can persuade him to turn other people.
SHARP: Do we have absolute confirmation that he was the head of a Special Forces Unit within Jemaah Islamiyah?
JONES: We don't have absolute confirmation in the sense of independent sources outside the police but certainly all the information that's been coming out of the people arrested in late March suggests that that's the case.
SHARP: They're obviously hoping to get information of the structure of Jemaah Islamiyah from him aren't they?
JONES: Yes I think they will get that.
SHARP: Do we know the exact role of Abu Dujana at this stage?
JONES: No we don't know the exact role and I think that's something that ought to come out in the next four or five days. I think that he was still reporting to someone higher in the organisation so that the question still is who is number one. But I think that his role as a critical member of the central command structure and as a military leader is enough to ensure that this is one of the most significant captures in the last three years.
SHARP: That is an interesting point you've raise Sidney. You're saying that he perhaps wasn't number one, Indonesian police say he was their most wanted fugitive. Many people believe that he was the number one?
JONES: Our assessment was that there was another man in the network who had been head administratively of what was called Mantiqi Two which was effectively all of Indonesia except for Suluwesi and East Kalimantan, and that because of the shrinkage of Jemaah Islamiyah from a regional to an Indonesian organisation, that the head of Mantiqi Two effectively became head of Jemaah Islamiyah. And that person's name is Nuaim and we don't know were he is.
SHARP: Do we know much about Nuaim.
JONES: We know a little bit about him. He's Jakarta born. He also was Afghanistan-trained, also someone who has been with the organisation since the very beginning and someone who like Abu Dujana is more of an administrator than he is a religious figure.
SHARP: Do you think this capture will spell an end to the activities of the J-I and its recruitment?
JONES: No, I think that the J-I has got deep roots in Indonesia and that requitement will be ongoing and that there'll probably will be some move to put someone else in place of Abu Dujana. I think one of the things to remember though is that in the last year or so when we've seen people replaced, everyone has been relatively inexperienced and far younger than the people whose place they took. So I think we're seeing a steady weakening of the organisation.
