Indonesian police said yesterday they had cracked a terrorist cell linked to some of the region’s most wanted fugitives after the arrest of 10 suspects with a cache of powerful homemade bombs.
Police said the cell was connected to Malaysian extremist Noordin Mohammad Top, a hardline leader of the Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) Islamist group who is wanted for allegedly masterminding the 2002 Bali attacks.
One of them was a bombmaker who reportedly met al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and is associated with Mas Selamat bin Kastari, the suspected leader of JI’s Singapore branch who escaped from prison there on Feb. 27.
They were arrested earlier this week in Palembang, the capital of South Sumatra Province, where US and Australian-trained anti-terror police also found a cache of more than 20 bombs hidden in the attic of a rented house.
“In Palembang we have arrested members of a terrorist network who were detained by Special Detachment 88,” police spokesman Abu Bakar Nataprawira told reporters, referring to the anti-terror squad.
“There is a relation between the Palembang group and the Central Java group, which means there is a relation between them and Noordin Top,” he said.
Top is considered a key leader of the most radical wing of JI, which has staged a series of bloody attacks in Indonesia and the Philippines, including the Bali nightclub bombings and the 2003 Marriott hotel bombing in Jakarta.
More than 200 people, mostly foreign tourists, died in the Bali attacks, while 12 were killed in the Marriott bombing.
Police did not confirm that the bomb expert linked to Kastari was a Singaporean, but the government in the city state said one of its citizens was among the group rounded up in Sumatra.
The Kompas daily said the suspect, identified by police only as MH, 35, had met bin Laden several times and had received training in Afghanistan. He is said to have been a student of JI bombmaker Azahari Husin, who was killed in 2005.
“The suspect gave training in assembling bombs to people in Palembang related to terrorist acts in Indonesia,” Nataprawira said, adding that he was arrested on Saturday.
The arrest of MH led to the detention of nine other suspects in Palembang and the raid on the house on Tuesday, where police discovered the bombs cache.
Seven powerful “tupperware bombs” and 20 smaller pipe bombs were found in the attic of the rented house, along with bomb-making chemicals and weapons. Sixteen of the bombs were reportedly primed to explode.
The group’s plans were not revealed but police said several of the suspects had been involved in the attempted murder of a Christian priest in West Java in 2005.
NO HUMAN ERROR: After the incident, the Coast Guard Administration said it would obtain uncrewed aerial vehicles and vessels to boost its detection capacity Authorities would improve border control to prevent unlawful entry into Taiwan’s waters and safeguard national security, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said yesterday after a Chinese man reached the nation’s coast on an inflatable boat, saying he “defected to freedom.” The man was found on a rubber boat when he was about to set foot on Taiwan at the estuary of Houkeng River (後坑溪) near Taiping Borough (太平) in New Taipei City’s Linkou District (林口), authorities said. The Coast Guard Administration’s (CGA) northern branch said it received a report at 6:30am yesterday morning from the New Taipei City Fire Department about a
IN BEIJING’S FAVOR: A China Coast Guard spokesperson said that the Chinese maritime police would continue to carry out law enforcement activities in waters it claims The Philippines withdrew its coast guard vessel from a South China Sea shoal that has recently been at the center of tensions with Beijing. BRP Teresa Magbanua “was compelled to return to port” from Sabina Shoal (Xianbin Shoal, 仙濱暗沙) due to bad weather, depleted supplies and the need to evacuate personnel requiring medical care, the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) spokesman Jay Tarriela said yesterday in a post on X. The Philippine vessel “will be in tiptop shape to resume her mission” after it has been resupplied and repaired, Philippine Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin, who heads the nation’s maritime council, said
CHINA POLICY: At the seventh US-EU Dialogue on China, the two sides issued strong support for Taiwan and condemned China’s actions in the South China Sea The US and EU issued a joint statement on Wednesday supporting Taiwan’s international participation, notably omitting the “one China” policy in a departure from previous similar statements, following high-level talks on China and the Indo-Pacific region. The statement also urged China to show restraint in the Taiwan Strait. US Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell and European External Action Service Secretary-General Stefano Sannino cochaired the seventh US-EU Dialogue on China and the sixth US-EU Indo-Pacific Consultations from Monday to Tuesday. Since the Indo-Pacific consultations were launched in 2021, references to the “one China” policy have appeared in every statement apart from the
More than 500 people on Saturday marched in New York in support of Taiwan’s entry to the UN, significantly more people than previous years. The march, coinciding with the ongoing 79th session of the UN General Assembly, comes close on the heels of growing international discourse regarding the meaning of UN Resolution 2758. Resolution 2758, adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1971, recognizes the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as the “only lawful representative of China.” It resulted in the Republic of China (ROC) losing its seat at the UN to the PRC. Taiwan has since been excluded from