NTB POLICE ACT ON REPORTED NOORDIN M TOP SIGHTING

Mataram, July 31 (ANTARA) - The anti-terror unit of the West Nusa Tenggara (NTB) police has launched an intensive search for fugitive terror suspect Noordin M Top after a local resident claimed to have seen a man matching Top's photo in Mataram.

The police on Thursday received a report from a local resident, Heru (28), that he had seen the wanted terrorist mastermind at an internet kiosk (warnet) in the city.

"Our anti terror unit has obtained information from Heru, a university student, to launch a search for Noordin Top's whereabouts," NTB Police spokesman Senior Commissioner Sukarman Husein said here on Friday.

Heru came to the police office on Thursday to report that he had seen someone who looked like Noordin M Top at an internet kiosk in the city of Mataram.

"When I saw the man, he was wearing a headset and doing something on a computer in the kiosk," Heru told Mataram police investigators. .

He said when he was able to look at the man's face he realized it matched the widely distributed picture of the Malaysian-born terror mastermind but he did not know what the man was doing on a computer.

"When I looked at the man, he looked back at me but he was visibly embarrassed and ill at ease," Heru said.
Sukarman said what Heru had reported was just a tip which needed further clarification and investigation.

Fugitive Malaysian-born extremist Noordin M Top has been linked to the bombings of the JW Marriott and Ritz Carlton hotels in Jakarta on Friday, July 17, 2009.

"From the modus operandi used in Friday's bombings, it is clear they are linked to Noordin M Top," Ansyaad Mbai, head of the anti-terror desk at the political, legal and security affairs coordinating ministry, said in Jakarta a day after the bombings.

He said that although the modus operandi was conventional, it was carried out in a more sophisticated way, namely by infiltrating into the target area.

"Previously, suicide bombings were conducted outside, in a hotel's front yard, for instance. But this time, the perpetrators dodged a tight security system and came very close to their target," Mbai said.