US-backed hunt for top terror suspect in RP continues (4:48 p.m.)
MANILA — US-backed Philippine troops have pressed ahead with a manhunt for a top Indonesian terror suspect believed to have helped plot the deadly 2002 Bali bombings despite suspicion that he was killed in a clash, officials said Tuesday.
Troops have checked at least two reported sightings but failed to find Dulmatin on southern Jolo island after the military reported last month that marines dug up his suspected body in nearby Tawi-Tawi province, police said.
US, Australian, Philippine and Indonesian experts have been conducting DNA tests on the body, which bore gunshot wounds and resembled Dulmatin, for more than a month and were expected to announce the results soon.
Dulmatin, identified by his wife as Ammar Usman, is believed to be a master bomb-maker of the Indonesia-based Jemaah Islamiyah militant group. He allegedly fled to the southern Philippines in 2003 to escape a massive manhunt after the Bali bombings, which killed 202 people in Southeast Asia’s worst terror attack.
An Indonesian police spokesman, Brigadier General Anton Bachrul Alam, was quoted by the Jakarta Post as saying Monday that the exhumed body was not Dulmatin’s. An Indonesian police team helped conduct the DNA tests and has returned home from the Philippines, he said.
But Philippine National Police Chief Avelino Razon said he could not confirm Bachrul Alam’s claim because US experts have not yet provided official DNA test results. His statement was backed up by Rebecca Thompson, spokeswoman for the US Embassy in Manila, who said the final results were not in.
A regional police chief, Chief Superintendent Jaime Caringal, said the military and police manhunt for Dulmatin has continued.
“Our assumption is that he’s still there until a final conclusive test would tell us that he’s been neutralized,” Caringal said. (AP)
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