This terrorist take-down will be televised

Posted By Brian Fung Monday, August 10, 2009 - 3:45 PM Share

A police raid on a suspected terrorist safehouse that was broadcast live on telivision "captivated Indonesian audiences" this past weekend, giving Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono a boost in popularity. Among the dead could be Noordin Mohamed Top, one of Asia's terror masterminds:

Local news channel tvOne showed live pictures of black-clad antiterrorism police carefully entering the farmhouse near Temanggung, a town in central Java, a province on Indonesia's main island, after they had riddled the dwelling with a volley of shots and sent in robots to sweep for bombs. [...]
Around dawn on Saturday, a major explosion was heard in the house and later police snipers on a nearby wooded hill intensified their attack on the property, which is surrounded by rice paddies. The tvOne news channel reported that a man inside the building at one point called out "I am Noordin M. Top."

Noordin is connected to several high-profile bombings in the past decade, including a 2004 truck bombing outside the Australian embassy in Jakarta that killed nine, and a foiled plot to assassinate President Yudhoyono.

Certainly puts "The Wanted" to shame.

AFP/GETTY IMAGES

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4:31 PM ET

August 10, 2009

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