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olice have discovered nine viable home-made bombs while investigating a scene where members of a terrorist group were involved in a shoot-out in South Poso Pesisir district, Central Sulawesi.

'€œWe only found the bombs, but we did not find firearms or other forms of evidence that the armed group likely took with them after the shoot-out,'€ Operation Tinombala 2016 territorial head Sr. Comr. Leo Bona Lubis told the media at the end of the week.

Lubis, also deputy chief for the Central Sulawesi Police, said all the evidence gathered was in the custody of the police'€™s Mobile Brigade (Brimob) Unit B in Poso. The evidence will be disassembled and analyzed at the Poso Regency Police headquarters.

He speculated that the other members of the group led by Santoso had likely fled to the Tineba mountain region in Taunca village, South Poso Pesisir district, after the shoot-out with the police and Indonesian Military (TNI) officers on Saturday. The shoot-out killed a member of Santoso'€™s terror group.

'€œThey apply a guerilla warfare system by moving from one place to another,'€ he added.

Lubis clarified that the suspect killed in the shoot-out was not Santoso, the leader of the Eastern Indonesian Mujahidin (MIT), but one of his subordinates.

Earlier, a source showed a photograph of the dead man that appeared to resemble Santoso.

The body is currently under the care of the Central Sulawesi Police Bhayangkara Hospital in Palu where it is to be analyzed and identified.

Lubis further said that security personnel involved in Operation Tinombala continued to hunt the MIT in the forests and mountains in Poso and its surrounding areas. The MIT is believed to have links with the Islamic State (IS) movement.

Police have also tightly guarded exits and access points to Poso by inspecting every vehicle that passes through the area.

'€œThe National Police headquarters have set Poso to alert 1 status,'€ said Lubis.

Operation Tinombala involves 2,000 Brimob and TNI troops, a higher number compared to Operation Camar Maleo, which involved 1,700 personnel.

'€œThe target is the same, i.e. capture Santoso dead or alive,'€ said Central Sulawesi Police chief Brig. Gen. Idham Azis.

Idham said the police would focus on the mountainous regions in Poso Pesisir, North Poso Pesisir, South Poso Pesisir and Napu in East Lore district up until Sausu in Parigi Moutong regency.

From the late 1990s until the mid-2000s, Poso was home to sectarian conflict between Muslims and Christian, which claimed thousands of lives on both sides.

Meanwhile, the Central Sulawesi Legal and Basic Human Rights Study Development Institute (LPS-HAM) said at its Palu office that the pursuit of Santoso and his gang had failed and was a waste of state funds.

Celebes Institute director Adriany Badrah said the joint police and TNI operations had been unable to reduce the cycle of violence and terror that continued to plague Poso, and had, furthermore, been unable to stop new members from joining Santoso in Poso.

'€œThis is proven by the capture of several foreigners in Poso,'€ said Adriany.

In September, police arrested seven suspected militants, including four individuals thought to have hailed from Chinese Turkestan, whom they believed were planning to join the terrorist group with possible links to the IS.