JAKARTA: The Indonesian police announced Friday the arrest of a second suspected leading terrorist this week, saying they had caught the overall leader of Jemaah Islamiyah, the Southeast Asian terrorist network.
The leader, Zarkasih, who goes by only one name, was seized last Saturday in central Java shortly after the police in the same area apprehended Abu Dujana, a deputy of Zarkasih's who heads the military arm of the organization. The police announced Abu Dujana's arrest Wednesday.
The two arrests could deal a major blow to the organization. The arrest of Dujana could seriously weaken its military wing, making Indonesia more secure from terrorist attacks, analysts said. The capture of Zarkasih will very likely devastate operations by the network across the board and hinder its already fractured ability to rebuild.
"He is the emir of Jemaah Islamiyah," Petrus Golose, a colonel in the national police force and member of the antiterrorism team here, said of Zarkasih in an interview. "He controls everyone, everyone important reports to him."
Zarkasih and Dujana were arrested by Detachment 88, the elite antiterrorism team in Indonesia. The two men were being interrogated in central Java, near Yogyakarta, on Friday.
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Back in August 2003, the then leader of JI, Riduan bin Isomoddin, was captured. While this arrest surely damaged the group, JI remained an active and significant terrorist threat in Southeast Asia.
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