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Indonesia arrests dozens after IS-linked suicide bombing
JAKARTA, Nov 18, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – Dozens of suspected Indonesian militants
have been rounded up after a suicide bomber linked to the Islamic State group
killed himself and wounded six others in a police station attack last week,
police said Monday.
Some 45 suspects have been arrested since the Wednesday bombing in Medan
on Sumatra island, while two bombmakers were shot dead during a raid,
according to authorities.
“The pair resisted arrest and tried to attack police with sharp weapons
and an air gun,” National Police spokesman Dedi Prasetyo told reporters in
Jakarta on Monday.
They had built a low-intensity bomb that the 24-year-old attacker strapped
around his body, Prasetyo added.
Authorities had earlier said they suspected the bomber was a “lone wolf”,
following the blast that wounded four police officers and two civilians.
Police stations are frequent targets for radicals in the world’s biggest
Muslim-majority nation, which has long struggled with Islamist militancy.
About 20 other suspects arrested since the bombing — including the
bomber’s wife and the couple’s religious mentor — played what police
described as direct roles in the attack and had links to Jamaah Ansharut
Daulah (JAD).
The outfit is a local extremist group that has pledged allegiance to IS
and carried out previous attacks, including suicide bombings at several
churches last year that killed a dozen congregants.
“The wife together with her husband (the bomber) were members of the JAD
network,” Prasetyo said.
“They had also attended military camp training… and were taught how to
buy guns and sharp weapons,” he added.
On Monday, some residents in Medan protested plans to bury the bomber’s
body in their city. The police station attack was revenge for earlier
militant arrests by Indonesia’s elite anti-terror squad Densus 88, Prasetyo
said.
Last month, President Joko Widodo ordered beefed-up security after two
JAD-linked militants stabbed his chief security minister, who survived the
attack.
The Southeast Asian nation of some 260 million has significant numbers of
religious minorities — including Christians, Hindus and Buddhists — who
have been targeted by radical Islamist groups amid concerns about rising
intolerance.
BSS/AFP/SSS/1553 hrs