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Ali Kalora of the Mujahideen in Eastern Indonesia was one of the two victims of Indonesia’s continued crackdown on hard-line groups.
Indonesian security forces said they killed a hardline leader with ties to the Islamic State (ISIS) organization in a gun battle on Saturday when anti-terrorism operations in remote areas of the archipelago were in full swing.
According to Brigadier General Farid Markroff, the military chief of the Central Sulawesi region, on late Saturday, military and police personnel killed East Indonesian jihadists in a joint operation in a village in eastern Sulawesi. Ali Kalora of MIT.
“Ali Kalola is the most wanted terrorist and leader at MIT,” Markrouff said.
The police said that another hardliner, Jaka Ramadhan, also known as Ikrima, was also shot and killed, adding that they were pursuing four other members of the organization.
Explosives, an M16 rifle and two machetes were also found.
Kalora has avoided capture for more than 10 years.
After the security forces killed the former head of MIT, Santoso, he took over the leadership of MIT. MIT sworn allegiance to ISIL in 2014.
Ridwan Habib, a terrorism analyst at the University of Indonesia, said that the Sulawesi-based MIT organization is unlikely to survive the death of its leader, although he suspects that the escaped members will continue to fight the security forces.
“Part of their ideology is to seek death because they believe that death will take them to heaven. Their leader is dead, and they will also seek their own death,” he told Reuters. “I’m not sure if it will be rebuilt [of MIT] Or elect a new leader. “
MIT claimed responsibility for several killings of police officers and ethnic minority Christians. In May, MIT killed four Christians in a village in Pozo District, and one of them was beheaded. Authorities said the attack was in retaliation for the killing of two members of the organization in March, including Santoso’s son.
Indonesia is the most populous Muslim-majority country in the world. It has stepped up surveillance and cracked down on hard-line groups since 2002. At that time, Bali was a popular holiday island and killed 202 people, most of them foreigners. .
The police arrested 53 people suspected of planning an attack on Indonesia’s Independence Day last month.
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