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May 18, 2010

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Terrorists still pose threat to Indonesia

INDONESIA is still under threat from terrorists despite the recent arrests of key militants, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said yesterday.

Yudhoyono said convicted terrorists tend to return to their old practices after completing their prison sentences.

"Although the key figures who had made our country insecure for the last 10 years have been disabled, terrorism remains a threat because the perpetrators who have been jailed still repeat the same acts," he said.

Police announced last week that they had foiled a plot to assassinate Yudhoyono, take over hotels, kill foreigners and establish an Islamic state.

Police have arrested 58 suspected militants and killed 13 in a series of raids since February, when authorities broke up a training camp run by a previously unknown terrorist group calling itself al-Qaida in Aceh.

Authorities believe they have incapacitated the group but acknowledged they are still hunting at least two key suspects, Abdullah Sunata and Umar Patek.

Yudhoyono condemned the militants for establishing a base in Aceh, which has been relatively calm since the government signed a peace deal with rebels in 2005, ending 29 years of fighting.

"I call on all people of Indonesia to save our nation, our people, from the terrorism threat, and to all provincial leaders and head of districts to be alert and contribute to terrorism prevention," the president said. "We have to save our children, the young generation, from the traps of terrorism."

Indonesia has battled Islamist militants since 2002, when extremists bombed a nightclub on Bali island killing 202 people.


 

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