A Muslim militant and convicted bomb-maker who was released from prison last year yesterday blew himself up at a police station on Indonesia’s Java Island, killing an officer and wounding 11 people, officials said.
The attacker entered the Astana Anyar police station with a motorcycle and detonated one of two bombs he was carrying as police were lining up for a morning assembly, Bandung City Police Chief Aswin Sipayung said.
The other explosive was defused.
Photo: Reuters
A video that circulated on social media showed body parts near the damaged lobby of the police station, which was engulfed in white smoke as people ran out of the building.
Food vendor Herdi Hardiansyah said he was preparing meals behind the station when a loud bang shocked him.
He saw a police officer whom he recognized as one of his customers covered in blood, being carried on a motorcycle by two other officers to a hospital. He later learned the officer died. Ten others and a civilian were wounded.
National Police Chief General Listyo Sigit Prabowo told reporters when he visited the station that the attacker was believed to have been a member of the militant organization Jemaah Anshorut Daulah (JAD), which has pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group and was responsible for other deadly suicide bombings in Indonesia.
He said police identified the man as Agus Sujatno, also known by his alias Abu Muslim. He was released from the Nusakambangan prison island last year after completing a four-year sentence on charges of terrorist funding and making explosives that were used in a 2017 attack on a municipal building, also in Bandung, the capital of West Java province.
JAD was designated a terrorist organization by the US in 2017.
Sujatno was still on police’s “red” lists of militant convicts after being freed from prison, because of his rejection of the government’s deradicalization program, Prabowo said.
“He was still difficult to talk to, and tended to avoid the [deradicalization] process,” Prabowo said.
The deradicalization program has been used since 2012 as part of the government’s soft approach to rehabilitate militants and wean them off radical views so they can better integrate into society once they are released.
Of the 2,500 militants arrested from 2000 to last year, about 1,500 have been released from prisons, and nearly 100 of them were recaptured in several attacks or for plotting attacks, the National Counterterrorism Agency said.
The deradicalization process involves discussion classes with religious figures, prominent academics and community leaders, as well as financial assistance for opening a business once militants are released.
Prabowo said he ordered police task force units and the counterterrorism squad to investigate the latest attack and find other possible culprits.
West Java Police Chief Suntana, who uses one name, said a paper taped to the perpetrator’s motorbike was recovered with the words, “Criminal code is the law of infidels, let’s fight the satanic law enforcers.”
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