TEMPO.CO, Jakarta – Muhammad Ridwan Abdurrahman, a son Abu Jibril, died in Syria on Thursday afternoon, March 26, 2015. Terrorism observer Al Chaidar has confirmed the news, saying he got the information from Muhammad’s family.
“Yes, I heard the news from his family,” he said on Thursday.
Al Chaidar posted the news on his Facebook page, attaching Muhammad’s picture holding a long rifle while sitting on the rocks in Idlib, Syria.
Idlib has been known as a battleground between the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS) and the Syrian military. In late October 2014, ISIS militants seized the city and slaughtered hundreds of Syrian soldiers. However, there has been no confirmed report yet if Ridwan had joined the Islamist extremists.
Abu Jibril was involved in the 2009 suicide bombing at the JW Marriot Hotel and Ritz Carlton in Jakarta. One of Abu’s sons, Muhammad Jibril Abdurrahman alias Ricky Ardan, was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment for committing terror acts.
According to Tempo’s records, Abu Jibril was once charged in Malaysia with ten months behind bars with a sentence reduction of time served for giving a false identity when applying for a passport at the Indonesian Embassy’s immigration office in Kuala Lumpur.
The Malaysian authorities also caught him on June 21, 2001 before he delivered a lecture in Shah Alam, Selangor. He was charged with committing activities dangerous to the Malaysian home security for his involvement in the Malaysian Mujahiddin—a group with a suspected link with convicted terrorist Abu Bakar Ba’asyir.
Abu Jibril was then imprisoned under the Malaysian Home Security Act (ISA) at Kemunting Perak Prison, but was later released on insufficient evidence on August 18, 2003. The Damansara immigration authorities nabbed him again three days later and sent him to Aji Prison in Trengganu on September 27, 2003, before deporting him to Indonesia.
NINIS CHAIRUNNISA
