Illustrative image (Source: AFP/VNA)Jakarta (VNA) – Four terrorist suspects were arrested in Surabaya, East Java, with links to the self-proclaimed Islamic State, Indonesia’s National Police Chief Gen. Badrodin Haiti said on June 15.
According to Badrodin, police spent one month preparing for the raid after mapping out terrorism-prone areas in the country. These suspects were reportedly planning bomb attacks in several areas across Surabaya.
Of the four arrested, IS had connection with two – Abu Jandal and Bahrun Naim, with the latter identified as the mastermind of a series of attacks near Sarinah shopping mall on Thamrin Road, central Jakarta, in January.
One of the suspects has already been convicted twice and is the owner of a house where homemade bombs were discovered by the National Police’s counterterrorism squad – Densus 88 – in Surabaya on June 8, Badrodin said.
The police chief noted that they are currently tracing funding sources for the homemade bombs.
Preliminary reports from the police showed that other suspects are still hiding in Jakarta.
In the raid on June 8, Densus 88 arrested a group of men with bomb-making material, guns and three bombs. They were reported to have been planning a bomb attack during the fasting month of Ramadan in the world’s most populous Muslim nation, and their target was the police.-VNA
