P

oso Police have resumed security operations in a number of areas across the regency following terror threats against residents sent via SMS and leaflets.

The raids have been focused in the area around Gunung Biru in Tamanjeka hamlet, Masani village and Ueralulu village in Poso Pesisir district. On Tuesday, dozens of Mobile Brigade (Brimob) officers raided houses in Tamanjeka and some huts on local farmland believed to have been the hideouts of hard-line group members.

'€œA few days ago, residents received terror threats via SMS and flyers. We believe that members of a hard-line group led by Santoso, alias Abu Wardah, who still runs his network in Gunung Biru in Tamanjeka, have spread the threats,'€ said Poso police chief Adj. Sr. Comr. Susnadi.

He said members of the Santoso group had blended in with local residents in Poso city to make it difficult for police to find them.

As of Tuesday evening, the police had not found any of the terror suspects who are believed to have sent the threats.

Papa Mirsa, 38, a school guard in Tamanjeka, said that he received such threat on a flyer. '€œAt first, I was scared receiving the threat, but now, not anymore. However, I remain alert,'€ Mirsa said, adding that he might be a target of the threats due to his closeness to police and military officers.

Another Tamanjeka resident, Papa Mirna, 34, also received a similar threat. '€œI was told not to cooperate with the police because the police were thogut [evil] and they were our enemy. If I ignored the warning, I was told that something bad might happen to me,'€ said Mirna.

Papa Camma, otherwise known as Amir, 36, received a threat via SMS from an unknown number. He was told to go to the site where the bodies of two police officers '€” Brig. Andi Sappa and Chief Brig. Sudirman '€” were found. The two officers were shot and killed in Tamanjeka on Oct. 2012 and their bodies were buried in one grave. '€œI went to the site, but I found nothing or met no one there,'€ said Camma.

Separately, Central Sulawesi Police Chief Tengah Brig. Gen. Ari Dono Sukmanto said that the police were still hunting down 22 suspected terrorists, including Santoso.

Ari believed that Santoso was still at large in Gunung Biru. '€œBut we have yet to locate his exact whereabouts because the Gunung Biru area is huge,'€ said Ari. He admitted that the police had difficulty gathering information from residents since local people were afraid to report anything to the police.

Besides hunting down the terrorist suspects, Ari said, the Central Sulawesi Police had actively promoted the de-radicalism campaigns in the fight against terrorism and radicalism among residents.

Dozens of Babin Kamtibmas (police public order officers) have been deployed to villages to approach residents. '€œThe children of terror suspects who have been killed [by police] know who killed their parents. So, we need a special approach to explain to the kids about the situation and educate them to stay away from getting involved in terrorism,'€ Ari said.

Poso was the site of sectarian conflict between Christian and Muslim communities between 1997 and 2001 that claimed around 1,000 lives and displaced 25,000. After the government initiated a peace pact in 2001, local extremists, many of them linked to terrorist group Jamaah Islamiyah (JI), launched attacks on Christians and local officials in the hope of reviving the clashes.