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Densus 88 arrests KAI employee for alleged IS link
The suspected terrorist, identified only by his initials DE, was arrested on Monday afternoon at his rented house in Bekasi, West Java.
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he National Police's Densus 88 counterterrorism squad has arrested an employee of state-owned railway company PT Kereta Api Indonesia (KAI) on suspicions that he is an Islamic State (IS) sympathizer.
The suspected terrorist, identified only by his initials DE, was arrested on Monday afternoon at his rented house in Bekasi, West Java.
DE had begun renting the house just six months ago and lived there with his pregnant wife and children, according to local neighborhood unit head Ichwanul Munlimin, as reported by several media outlets.
The police searched the suspect’s home and seized more than a dozen firearms, including pistols, rifles and airsoft guns that had been converted into lethal firearms, as well as hundreds of rounds of ammunition, Densus 88 spokesperson Sr. Comr. Aswin Siregar said.
“We are working with other police units to uncover how the suspect got the firearms,” Aswin told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday.
Indonesia’s firearm regulations are extremely strict and only a few select civilians are permitted to own guns.
Aswin said the suspect had once been part of a West Indonesian Mujahidin group in Bandung before becoming a supporter of Jamaah Ansharut Daulah (JAD), a homegrown network of Islamist militants that has pledged allegiance to IS and is believed to have been behind a number of terror attacks in the country.
Aswin suspected that DE had joined JAD in response to a video of a deadly 2018 riot inside a detention center at the National Police’s Mobile Brigade headquarters. The riot was reportedly incited by inmates who were IS supporters and were connected to JAD. Five police officers were killed in the standoff with the inmates.
He also said the suspect had been planning to launch an attack on the Mobile Brigade headquarters in Jakarta and the West Java Police’s Mobile Brigade office in Bandung. DE had also been mapping out several military bases as other possible targets, according to Aswin.
An initial probe concluded that the suspect had acted alone, but the counterterrorism squad is still on the hunt for other possible militants linked to DE.
Intelligence and terrorism analyst Stanislaus Riyanta said the arrest and the confiscation of more than a dozen weapons indicated that the suspect was not working alone.
National Police spokesperson Brig. Gen. Ahmad Ramadhan previously said DE was a staunch supporter of IS and had been actively campaigning for jihad on his social media accounts, Tempo.co reported. He also said DE had posted a poster pledging allegiance to the late IS leader Abu al-Hussein al-Husseini al-Qurashi, but he did not reveal when the posts were published.
Ahmad added that DE had created a Telegram channel to spread the latest information about global terror activities, translated into Indonesian. The channel was also used to raise funds for IS, he said.
DE's arrest came only days before the country celebrates its 78th Independence Day on Aug. 17.
KAI executive vice president Raden Agus Dwinanto Budiadji said the railway company did not tolerate any crimes committed by its employees, especially crimes of terror. “We are ready to work together with the authorities to address this issue," Raden said in a statement on Monday.
He added that KAI would continue to remind its employees of the importance of national integrity and enhance internal monitoring for extreme ideologies.
IS sympathizers
The world's largest Muslim-majority nation suffered its worst terror attack in 2002, when terrorists bombed two nightclubs in the island province of Bali and killed 202 people, mostly foreign tourists.
IS has inspired the formation of several homegrown terrorist groups, including JAD, which was outlawed in 2018.
JAD members were responsible for a series of suicide bombings in 2018 against three churches in Surabaya, East Java, killing at least 30 people. The incident shocked the country in part because the perpetrators were three families that had attached suicide vests to their young children in carrying out the attacks.
In 2021, a newlywed couple who were also JAD members carried out a suicide bombing against a cathedral in Makassar, South Sulawesi, killing only themselves.
The group is now largely splintered and has been significantly weakened in recent years after a wave of arrests by counterterrorism police.
Analysts say the threat of extremist attacks in Indonesia has greatly diminished and while arrests of suspected extremists do occur, pledging IS allegiance has been rare among local elements.
