The National Police say the possibility of terrorist attacks in the country remains high, citing the mushrooming of new terror cells in the wake of July’s hotel bombings in Jakarta.
Brig. Gen. Usman Nasution, head of the police’s Detachment 88 counterterrorism unit, said Thursday many suspected terrorists still at large were believed to have set up new cells.
“These operatives in the new cells are just waiting for an outbreak of religious or sectarian conflict to launch their terror attacks,” he said on the sidelines of an international workshop on counterterrorism.
“They will take whatever chance they get to launch an attack.”
Asked whether fresh attacks were imminent in the short term, Usman said, “Yes, they can launch them soon because many expert bomb makers remain at large.
“Many of the terrorists are preparing themselves.”
He added the police had no idea where these new cells were.
“We found out about most of them, like the cell established by Syafrudin Zuhri, only after
we question arrested suspects,” he said.
He claimed these terrorist cells, whether long-established or new, all had the same aim of creating an Islamic state encompassing much of the archipelago.
Since 2000, the police have arrested 455 suspected terrorist militants, 352 of whom have since been convicted and jailed, while 12 are awaiting trial.
Of those who served time, 204 have been released.
Police shot dead the country’s most wanted terror suspect, Noordin M. Top, in a raid in Surakarta, Central Java, in September.
Usman said the slaying of key militants, including Noordin, could encourage other terrorists to return to the country.
Noordin was the prime suspect behind the July 17 bombings of the JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotels in Kuningan, South Jakarta, which killed seven people and injured 55 others.
He was also widely believed to be responsible for the 2002 Bali nightclub bombings that killed
202 people, most of them foreign tourists.
Two other suspects in those bombings, Umar Patek and Dulmatin, are believed to have fled to the Philippines, but Usman was confident they would attempt to return to Indonesia.
“They still have family here,” he explained.
Members of Noordin’s network and their followers enjoy strong grassroots support across Java, including in parts of Serang in Banten province, Kuningan and Cirebon in West Java, Cilacap, Wonosobo, Temanggung and Surakarta in Central Java, Lamongan, Malang and Pasuruan in East Java, and Yogyakarta, where residents have offered them shelter.
Usman said ongoing religious and sectarian strife in places such as Ambon and Papua could
be the fodder for more terrorist attacks.
“They will use these conflicts to launch attacks,” he said.
He added the police were still investigating a possible link between al-Qaeda and militant groups in Indonesia, following the arrests in August of a Saudi national and the owner of an Indonesian radical website and magazine.
The 2002 Bali and 2003 Marriott bombings were both funded by al-Qaeda, Usman added.
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