Posted on 11/09/2005 5:07:30 PM PST by naturalman1975
INDONESIAN police were certain that terrorist mastermind Azahari Husin is dead and were only waiting on forensic confirmation, Australian Federal Police (AFP) Commissioner Mick Keelty said.
Mr Keelty said Azahari's head remained intact after he blew himself up when cornered by troops in Indonesia yesterday.
Local police are satisfied the remains are those of the Malaysian bomb expert.
"Certainly facially he's been identified by General Gorries Mere, who's been heading the terrorist tracking team for three years," Mr Keelty said on Southern Cross radio.
"So we've got no reason to believe it's not right. It's just that forensically we haven't properly identified him and that will take some time."
AFP officers have played a key role in tracking down Azahari after a three year hunt for the man behind both Bali bombings, the attack on Jakarta's Marriott hotel in 2003 and last year's bombing outside the Australian Embassy in Indonesia.
The 45-year-old – a key figure in the terrorist network Jemaah Islamiah – triggered a bomb, killing himself and two others after police moved in on a safe house in the East Java hill resort town of Batu yesterday afternoon.
Mr Keelty said there were concerns there could be more explosives in the house, and AFP and Indonesian forensic officers are about to move in.
"The AFP forensic team ... and the INP (Indonesian National Police) forensic team will be in this morning to go through the safe house," he said.
"Obviously we're very concerned that other explosives are inside the house, so all that forensic work will be done over the next day or two."
The AFP has been helping Indonesian police track Azahari since the 2002 Bali bombings which killed 202 people, including 88 Australians.
Australian police had a "forward team" in the area during yesterday's operation, but Mr Keelty would give no details.
Azahari's decision to take his own life came as no surprise to police.
"We've believed for some time that that would be one of his options, and two other people have been killed in that part of the operation," Mr Keelty said on ABC Radio.
The breakthrough in the manhunt came last week when one of the bombers involved in last month's restaurant attacks in Bali was identified.
"And that led the joint tracking team, the terrorist tracking team that we've had with the Indonesian national police and the AFP, into the region over the last couple of days," Mr Keelty said.
"Some more precise information came through the day before yesterday and we've been working on that with the Indonesians since then."
Mr Keelty said Azahari's death would hobble Jemaah Islamiah's operations.
"It will not of course bring back any of the lives of the people who were killed or in many ways provide to them any sort of justice," he said.
"But it will make a big dent in the operations of the radical terrorist groups in Indonesia."
Another Malaysian terrorist also wanted over all four bombings, Noordin Mohamad Top, was not with Azahari and remains on the run.
Azahari joined the South-East Asian terrorist network in the late 1990s and gained his explosives expertise at al-Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan.
"Azahari's head remained intact after he blew himself up"
.....the sign of a great terrorist...keeps his head together under pressure!
In terrorist circles a demolitions expert is someone who manages to blow themselves up.
Now, there's something wrong with applying the title of "expert" to someone like that.
Another brave murder take the cowards way out.
Photos would be appreciated.
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