Security agencies and analysts are trying to verify chatter that Bahrun Naim, the alleged terrorist mastermind behind the attack in Jakarta last year, has been killed in Syria.

Internet chatgroups known to be used by extremists were abuzz on Monday (Dec 4) morning with chatter that the Indonesian militant had died while fighting for the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

If true, Bahru’s death would be a significant blow to a plan by ISIS to establish a caliphate in South-east Asia.

But these “battlefield deaths”, especially of foreign terrorist fighters who left home to join groups such as ISIS in the Middle East, or the Maute in Marawi city in the southern Philippines, are notoriously difficult to verify, according to counter-terrorism analysts such as Mr Jasminder Singh of the International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research (ICPVTR).