The joint team comprising Indonesian Military and National Police continued on Sunday to heighten security measures on the border zones of Poso and Lembah Napu areas, which comprise North Lore, Central Lore, East Lore and Lore Piore. Personnel checked all vehicles coming into the areas without a valid reason, hoping to prevent new people from joining with the terrorist group, which is now hiding in Central Sulawesi’s Poso forests.

Central Sulawesi Police chief Rudy Sufahriadi said tighter security precautions imposed in Poso were based on the existing evidence. A resident of Medan, North Sumatra, was arrested in Poso Pesisir Utara on Thursday.  

From an identity card confiscated during the operation, Rudy said, the Medan resident’s name was Joanda Pratama, 28, and he lived on Jl.Garu II A No.57, Harjosari I sub-district, Medan Amplas, North Sumatra. During his interrogation, he admitted that he had been lured to Poso by Santoso’s calls for jihad which have gone viral on YouTube recently.

“He was motivated by the calls to jihad and he decided to come to Poso to join Santoso, but we managed to arrest him [before he joined the terrorist group],” said the police chief.

Central Sulawesi Tadulaku 132 military command post chief Col.Syaiful Anwar said that every day his forces were closing in on Santoso’s group, adding that it could no longer move freely and it was now only a matter of time before the group was neutralized.

“We will direct them to a certain point and paralyze them. We hope they will not fight us again and there will be no more victims,” said Syaiful, who is also the Operation Tinombala deputy commander.

It was reported that the Santoso group had executed one of the group members for attempting to flee and surrender to security officers.

On Tuesday, a decayed body was found on brink of the Lariang River in Lelo village, West Lore district, Poso.

“From the results of preliminary investigation, it was the body of a member of Santoso’s MIT group,” said Rudy.

He further explained the man was around 180 centimeters tall and wore a Casio watch. There was a hole in his head and a bullet wound on his waist. His leg was also injured.

Rudy said that in his testimony, Zaelani Effendi, a Santoso terrorist group member who was arrested in February, claimed that the features of the victim were similar to those of a group member. However, he said that what he could not confidently identify the person in the picture provided by the joint security team, as the victims face was severely wounded.

“There are two of Santoso’s men with characteristics similar to those of the corpse,” said Rudy, repeating Zaelani’s report. Although he could not confirm the victim’s identity, Zaelani suspected that he was Sobron, aka Son Haji or Abu Sulaeman, the police chief further added.

Rudy said that it was very unlikely the dead body was a victim of a shootout between MIT terrorists and security officers and that there were strong suspicions that Sobron was executed by his own colleagues when he attempted to surrender to security authorities.

“It was reported that the Santoso group considered him a thogut [infidel]. He was also considered to have slowed down the group’s movements, so it was probable that he was executed by the group’s other members,” said Rudy.

He further said it was well known that any MIT member indicated to have lost faith in the group or anyone trying to surrender to security authorities would be shot or killed. His or her face would be damaged so he or she could not be recognized.

This was because of their principle that it was better to die as a syuhada (a person who dies for Islam) than die as an infidel after surrendering to their enemies, said Rudy.

During Operation Tinombala, security authorities have killed at least five MIT terrorists, namely Fahruddin, aka Udin; Agus Surianto, aka Farhan; Dodo, aka Ponda or Fonda Amar Soalihin; Magalasi Bahtusan, aka Farok; and Nuretin, aka Abdul. Zaelani is the only MIT member who has been captured alive. (ebf)

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