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INDONESIA-TERRORISM-SYRIA
Indonesian Islamic State militant killed in Syria: police
JAKARTA, Feb 13, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – An Indonesian Islamic State group member
who appeared in terrorist propaganda videos showing the execution of
prisoners has been killed in Syria, police said Wednesday.
Muhammad Saifuddin, who was known widely by the alias Abu Walid, was killed
on January 29 in the Syrian province of Deir Ezzor by shrapnel from a Syrian
government tank shell, national police spokesman Dedi Prasetyo told AFP in a
WhatsApp message.
“Abu Walid was one of ISIS’s executioners,” Prasetyo said, adding he
appeared in online execution videos released by the group.
Saifuddin also featured in a number of online recruitment videos for the
extremist group, including the first Indonesian-language video appealing for
Indonesian militants to fight for IS in the Philippines if they could not
reach Syria, according to the Institute for Police Analysis of Conflict
(IPAC).
He was designated a terrorist in August last year by the United States.
Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim-majority country, has long struggled
with Islamist militancy and has been hit by a series of attacks in the past
15 years, including the 2002 Bali bombings that left more than 200 people
dead.
In recent years, hundreds of radicals from Indonesia have flocked abroad to
fight with IS in Syria and Marawi in the Philippines, and the country has
seen a surge in plots and attacks linked to the jihadists.
BSS/AFP/SSS/1943 hrs