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Indonesia on high alert despite foiling terror plot
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DESPITE foiling an alleged plot by Islamic militants to assassinate public figures, Indonesian officials believe a credible threat of terrorist attacks remains during the year-end holiday season in this predominantly Muslim nation, especially against minority Christians.
The government has deployed 150,000 security personnel across the country to safeguard churches, airports and other public places, while also intensifying a manhunt for Indonesia’s most wanted militant, Abu Wardah Santoso, who has pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group.
“We got quite intensive intelligence details about the possibility of radical attacks anytime from now to the near future,” said Luhut Pandjaitan, a Cabinet minister in charge of security and political affairs.
“So, we are on high alert, especially at the airports and some strategic points” in a national security sweep, he said.
Separately, national police chief General Badrodin Haiti said “there are many possible threats and vulnerabilities, ranging from conventional crimes to terrorism and radicalism.”
The remarks come after the weekend arrests of nine suspected Muslim militants who authorities allege planned to attack government officials and minority Shiite Muslims. Most Muslims in Indonesia, which has the world’s largest Islamic population, belong to the Sunni branch of the religion.
Police revealed on Monday that intelligence gleaned from the suspects and evidence seized from their hideouts revealed an elaborate plot to conduct attacks on the main islands of Java, Sumatra and Borneo.
At the same time, about 1,300 security personnel are hunting for Santoso, the leader of a militant group known as the East Indonesia Mujahidin. He has taken responsibility for the killing of several police officers and has pledged allegiance to the IS group in Syria and Iraq, Pandjaitan said.
Haiti, the police chief, said government forces were pursuing about 40 militants who split into smaller groups and withdrew when police and soldiers raided their camp in a forest in Poso on Monday.
Indonesian authorities estimate that more than 800 Indonesians have joined the IS group in Syria or Iraq.
For the first time since the 1990s and the Afghan jihad, extremists from Indonesia, Malaysia and other places in Southeast Asia are traveling abroad in an organized fashion to join a global militant movement, picking up battlefield skills and militant contacts.
Officials fear they could take part in terrorism on their return home, as those trained in Afghanistan did in attacks such as the 2002 Bali bombings, which killed 202 people.
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