Indonesian authorities still on high alert for terror attack (DPA)
8 July 2005
JAKARTA - Indonesian authorities continue to be on high alert as they hunt for terror suspects who are believed to be planning another terror attack in Jakarta, a spokesman said on Friday.
“We know that they are planning it,” Aryanto Anang Budiarjo, spokesman for the National Police, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.
No major attack has occurred in the capital since foreigners living in Jakarta were alerted last month of the strong possibility of a terror attack by a flurry of embassy warnings, but police say they are still “anticipating” an attack.
“The anticipation that we have from a while ago, after the bomb threats directed at hotels, still applies up until now,” Aryanto said. “There’s been no order from the police chief to remove that so we are still tightening security at locations that might be targeted, such as hotels, and centers of high activity, like malls and markets.”
Authorities say the arrest of 17 terror suspects last week in police raids has shown that they are making progress in efforts to prevent another attack. But they say that terrorists continue plotting and the two most-wanted Malaysian terror suspects, Azahari Husin and Noordin Mohammad Top, continue to recruit new militants to replace those arrested.
“These people that we arrested, the 17, are part of the plan,” Aryanto said. “The tricky part is that we arrest them, but Azahari and Top are recruiting new members.”
Authorities say the while the two fugitives, who have been accused of playing key roles for the al-Qaeda-linked regional terrorist group Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) in a string of bombings in Indonesia, are suspected to be on the island of Java. They are thought to be traveling separately by car and motorbike to recruit new members.
There are also new, unaffiliated groups cropping up that may have their own agendas in launching attacks, police said.
Aryanto pointed to a bomb left in the parking lot of a busy railway station last month in Jakarta and one that exploded a week earlier outside the house of Moslem cleric Abu Jibril’s house in Pamulang, Tangerang as evidence.
“Although there is JI, we are also looking out for adventurer groups, such as the Abu Jibril bombers,” Aryanto said. “We are paying attention to those new groups.”
JI has been accused of the most deadly terror attacks targeting foreigners in Indonesia in recent years, including the October 2002 Bali bombings, which left 202 people dead; the August 2003 J.W. Marriott Hotel blast, which killed 13 people in Jakarta; and the bombing outside the Australian embassy last September, which killed 11, including the suicide bomber.
Indonesian authorities last month began tightening security in West Java after allegedly receiving a number of intelligence intercepts citing possible attacks from terrorist groups led by Azahari and Top.
