01/06/2022 Indonesia (International Christian Concern) – A pro-Islamic State militant accused of beheading villagers were killed in a shootout Tuesday by Indonesian security forces.
According to the officials, identified as Ahmad Gazali, the 27-year-old suspect was killed in the mountains of Parigi Moutong regency. With his death, the members of the terrorist group Eastern Indonesia Mujahideen (MIT) are reduced to three.
Gazali was gunned down four months after two other members of MIT were killed in another jungle shootout. MIT’s leader, Ali Kalora, the most wanted terrorist at the time, was among the dead.
MIT has claimed responsibility for the brutal killings of police officers and Christian villagers in Central Sulawesi, some by beheading. Police said that Gazali was involved in several MIT’s executions, including the beheadings of four Christian farmers on May 11, 2021.
Provincial police spokesman Didik Supranoto told reporters that the joint military and police task force confiscated a homemade bomb, a bottle containing gunpowder, a machete, and other evidence after Gazali was killed and his companion escaped.
Lukman Tahir, a terrorism analyst at the State Islamic Institute in Palu, told Benar News that the three remaining MIT fugitives were getting weaker and desperate, adding that patrols should be intensified.
“They are already weak. This is an opportunity for the task force to raise operational tensions so that they can capture the three fugitives,” Lukman said.
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