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Experts advise watchfulness as Papua Police confirm one 'terror' arrest
Intelligence and terror experts say that Indonesia's terror groups appear to be migrating to Papua as a possible base of operations.
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The emblem of the National Police’s Densus 88 counterterrorism squad, an owl, appears in this file photograph. (Persda Network via kompas.com/Bina Harnansa)
T
he fear of active terrorist groups has resurfaced in Papua province following the arrest of an alleged terrorist and seizure of homemade explosives on Dec. 5 in Sentani district, Jayapura.
National Police spokesman Argo Yuwono confirmed on Dec. 6 that the Papua Police and the police's counterterrorism squad, Densus 88, had made the arrest.
Papua Police spokesman Sr. Comr. Ahmad Mustofa Kamal directly confirmed with The Jakarta Post that one terrorist suspect had been arrested, and denied that the police had arrested eight suspects with ties to the Jamaah Ansharut Daulah (JAD) as reported in several media.
Ahmad declined to give further details of the arrest, saying that it was part of an ongoing investigation.
Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict (IPAC) director Sidney Jones said that the easternmost province was not an area of focused terrorist activity.
“The recent arrests are linked to members of JAD cells in Bekasi [West Java] and Lampung who fled to Sentani after the rioting at the headquarters of the Police Mobile Brigade [Mako Brimob] in May 2018,” she told the Post on Friday.
Jones added that the alleged JAD members had not conducted any extensive training so far.
