Senior Jemaah Islamiyah commander captured in Indonesia

Click the photo to view a presentation on Jemaah Islamiyah, al Qaeda's affiliate in Southeast Asia. The presentation was created by Nick Grace and Bill Roggio in January 2008. AFP Photo.

Indonesia's elite counterterrorism police unit, Detachment 88, captured the most wanted member of an al Qaeda-linked terror group who were plotting attacks in the Southeast Asian country. Two of his aides were also captured and another was killed.

Detachment 88 captured Jemaah Islamiyah commander Abdullah Sunata, an aide named Sogir, and another unnamed aide during a raid in Katen in Central Java, the Jakarta Globe reported. The fourth terrorist, Yuli Karseno, was killed in a shootout.

The terror cells was plotting to bomb the Danish Embassy in Jakarta as well as conduct a series of Mumbai-style attacks in the capital during Indonesia's Independence Day ceremony on Aug. 17. The president and foreign dignitaries were to be targeted during the planned assault. The cell also targeted three policemen during shooting in Central Java.

'We are sure that they chose the police as the target as revenge for a terror raid in Aceh and they wanted to bomb the Danish Embassy because of the Prophet Mohammad's caricature fiasco,' Tito Karnavian, the chief of Detachment 88, told the Jakarta Globe, referring to the controversy over cartons printing in Europe.

Sunata is a long-time Jemaah operative is closely linked to the al Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf Group, a terrorist group based in the Philippines. Sunata has been described by Jamestown as “a bridge between the two organizations” and “a key figure in dispatching suicide bombers.” He also is linked to the the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.. The Indonesian president's spokesman described Sunata as “a key person that connected the national terrorist network with international ones.”

Sunata was involved in the recruitment of Indonesian jihadis and helped to send them to camps in the Philippines. He also served as the head of KOMPAK, or Komite Penanggulangan Krisis, Jemaah Islamiyah's charitable front group. Sunata received several donations from a Saudi named Abu Mohammad. Sunata was arrested in 2006 for harboring Mohammed Noordeen Top, the slain Jemaah Islamiyah leader, and spent three years in jail before being released in 2009 for good behavior.

After being released from prison, Sunata immediate linked up with his terrorist network and began plotted attacks against the government. Sunata organized a group of jihadists in Aceh, which took on the name al Qaeda in Aceh. More than 100 jiahdists are thoguht to have joined the cell. Indonesian police have killed 13 members of al Qaeda in Aceh and detained 60 more.

Sogar is a bomb maker and the planner of the bomb plot against the Danish embassy. He is said to be a student of Azahari Husin, a master Jemaah Islamiyah bomb maker who was involved with major attacks in Indonesia from 2002-2005. Azahari, a Malaysian national, was killed by police in 2005.

Detachment 88 has been effective in dismantling Jemaah Islamiyah's military arm. Over the past year, Top and Dumaltin, the group's top two military commanders, have been killed.

But Jemaah Islamiyah's spiritual leadership remain intact while much of the network has gone dormant. Abu Bakar Bashir, the spiritual leader of Jemaah Islamiyah, severed jsut two years in prison for his involvement in the deadly 2002 Bali nightclub bombing.