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redit should go to the Densus 88 counterterrorism unit for acting quickly to foil a planned bomb attack in Jakarta, otherwise, as police have said, terrorists would have struck the Myanmar embassy on Friday.

The potential impact of the thwarted attack is perhaps beyond imagination, given the police'€™s seizure of five lethal home-made pipe bombs classified as high explosives, which two suspects, Sefa Riano, 28, and Achmad Taufiq, 21, were to hand over to suspected suicide bomber, Sigit, 23, who is still on the run. Densus 88 arrested the first two young men on Thursday night, hours before they could execute their plot.

National Counterterrorism Agency (BNPT) head Ansyad Mbai said solidarity with Muslim Rohingyas in Myanmar was the motive behind the plan to bomb the embassy. If true, it indicates a shift in the targets of home grown terrorist groups. In the wake of the 9/11 bombings, terrorist targets included Western interests, as happened when Jamaah Islamiyah masterminded carnage twice in Bali and three times in Jakarta. Then '€œthe allies of the West'€ were added to the list, as was evident in several attempts to assassinate President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and numerous
attacks targeting the police.

Myanmar has been placed in the international spotlight for its failure to stop sectarian conflict in Rakhine state, where anti-Muslim violence broke out twice last year. The deadly unrest spread to central Myanmar for the first time in March. Reported persecution against the Rohingyas has forced thousands of people of the minority ethnic group to flee the country, including to Indonesia.

Yudhoyono and his fellow ASEAN leaders have raised concerns about developments in Myanmar, but have done
little else.

Perhaps it was the West'€™s tendency to turn a blind eye to continuing ethnic violence, combined with the inability of ASEAN (and in particular a predominantly Muslim Indonesia) to defend the minority Muslim Rohingyas, which served to inspire a suicide bomb attack on the Myanmar Embassy.

No country, not even a superpower like the United States, is able to completely prevent people from developing the desire to launch these attacks. What countries can do is give these assailants no opportunity to realize their intentions.

Banning radical thought is near in impossible. Security forces, however, hold the authority to stifle radicals once they threaten others and the state.

Strict law enforcement will deter people from supporting or committing acts of terrorism, but in the case of Indonesia, law enforcement faces a daunting challenge with an increasing awareness of civil and human rights protection thanks to a thriving democracy. Efforts to revise the Antiterrorism Law into a more stringent law have been met with public opposition due to fears that draconian legislation will revive authoritarianism and snuff out democracy. On the other hand, the threat to national security from terrorists will cause democracy to perish anyway.

Against the backdrop of its much criticized deradicalization program, the BNPT has designed a counterterrorism blueprint that will focus on promoting moderate Islam. Mainstream Islamic organizations like Muhammadiyah and Nahdlatul Ulama, known for their moderate views, will be involved in the fight against radicalism.

It will take years or decades for the program to bear fruit, or perhaps it is destined to fail as with its previous incarnation. At the end of the day, however, a justice system that takes a zero tolerance approach to intolerance is all that we need.