T

he National Police confirmed on Friday that the son of notorious Bali bombing terror convict Imam Samudra was killed while fighting in war-torn Syria.

Sources within the police force said the information they received stated that Umar Jundul Haq, 19, had been killed on Wednesday at Deir ez-Zor Airport.

'€œYes, [he died] two days ago,'€ the source told The Jakarta Post.

Umar was the oldest child of Imam, who was convicted of masterminding the first Bali bombing in late 2002 that killed 202 people, mostly foreign tourists.

Imam, born in Lopang Gede in Serang, Banten, quickly became immersed in Islamic teachings during his formative years and was nurtured by Abu Bakar Ba'€™asyir, the leader of terrorist network Jamaah Islamiyah (JI).

During a court hearing, Imam admitted that he felt he had a moral obligation to plant the bombs used in the Bali attack.

Imam and two other organizers of the Bali attack '€” brothers Amrozi and Ali Ghufron '€” were later convicted and faced the firing squad in 2008.

When news first broke in March that Umar had left for Syria in the hope of joining the Islamic State (IS) movement and the al-Qaeda-linked Jabhat al-Nusra, many learned that at least four sons of infamous Indonesian terrorists had also joined the two groups.

Meanwhile, Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict (IPAC) director Sidney Jones said the terrorists'€™ sons may have traveled to Syria to preserve their fathers'€™ legacies.

'€œI think that within some families there'€™s a prestige in waging jihad,'€ she told the Post on Friday.

Although she believed that the children of terror convicts were only a small portion of the number of people who joined IS, Jones said those who traveled to Syria with the intention of joining the radical movement were unlikely to be fresh, self-radicalized men.

'€œMost of the people who went to Syria have some association with radical groups and are not self-radicalized. Most of them have ties with terrorist networks,'€ she said.

The government has estimated around 500 Indonesians have gone to Syria and Iraq to fight with IS, with around half of them Indonesian citizens who were already residing in nearby countries as students or migrant workers prior to the rise of IS.

However, Jones believed the number of Indonesians who had joined IS was smaller.

'€œYou have to ask who are these 500 people. According to our data of the people we know have traveled there, around 45 percent of them are women and children. Not all of them are fighters, many are families,'€ she said.

'€œHumanitarian aid is also included [in the government figure] so I think the numbers are closer to 250 rather than 500.'€

In order to prevent more Indonesians from traveling to Syria and Iraq, Jones explained that the government must issue a government regulation in lieu of law (Perppu) in order to help local law enforcement catch those traveling before or after they returned from the war zone. '€œThe police don'€™t have the legal tools.There needs to be a Perppu which prohibits joining militia or foreign terrorist activities,'€ Jones said.

However, she warned that the government must carefully word the Perppu so that it would not punish too broad a range of activities as some Indonesians have traveled to the war-torn area for economic reasons, not to fight.