Bali News / Island’s News Updates

The arrests last week of 10 suspected Islamic militants severely weakened Indonesia’s terrorist movement, the country’s foreign minister said Sunday. The police operation on northern Sumatra island sent suspected terrorists fleeing, reflecting the efficiency of Indonesia’s security forces, Foreign Minister Hassan Wirayuda told reporters on the sidelines of an Islamic economic meeting in Malaysia.

The arrests on Sumatra also highlighted the lingering threat in Indonesia, which has been hit by a string of suicide bombings in recent years, including the 2002 Bali nightclub attacks that thrust the world’s most populous Muslim nation onto the front lines in the war on terrorism.

Many of the 240 people killed in those blasts, blamed on regional militant network Jemaah Islamiyah, were foreign tourists. “The fact that we have uncovered terrorist activities and that we did not experience any terrorist incidents in the past two years means our security is working very well,” Wirayuda said. “We have uncovered various terrorist cells … meaning they are within our reach.” It is unclear whether the terrorist movement has been “crippled, but the fact is they are on the run,” he said. “We are encouraged and feel more secure.”

Indonesia has rounded up and tried hundreds of suspects since the Bali strikes — an action that has been widely praised by Washington and other allies in the fight against Islamic extremism.

Indonesian police arrested the suspects, including a Singaporean, last week and seized a cache of powerful bombs, many packed with bullets to maximize the impact of a planned attack on Western tourists at a cafe on Sumatra Island, police said. The attack was later abandoned amid concerns that too many Muslims would be killed and the group instead planned to choose a target in the capital, Jakarta, police said earlier.

The suspects allegedly had ties with Southeast Asia’s most wanted man, Noordin Top, a Malaysian fugitive believed to head a violent breakaway faction of Jemaah Islamiyah that is committed to al-Qaida-style attacks on Western civilians. Wirayuda said authorities are investigating whether Noordin is still in Indonesia.

News by Associated Press (AP) - ap.google.com