Indonesian police stage raids on suspected militants in Aceh, 1 officer killed

Indonesian police stage raid suspected militants

JAKARTA, Indonesia — Indonesian authorities conducted more raids on a group of suspected Muslim militants in the province of Aceh, part of a sweep that has netted at least 14 suspects, who were flown to Jakarta on Friday.

The 14 were charged with plotting terrorist acts on Thursday, and police are investigating whether there is any link to a threat to shipping in the nearby Malacca Strait, national police chief Gen. Bambang Hendarso Danuri said in Jakarta, without elaborating.

Singapore’s navy warned this week that an unnamed terrorist group was planning attacks on oil tankers in the strait, one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes.

A police officer was killed and at least 10 were wounded in the latest raids, conducted Thursday in Aceh’s Lamkabeue village, provincial police chief Maj. Gen. Aditya Warman told reporters. Danuri said there were casualties among the militants, but declined to give details.

The battle came during a police crackdown on militants in Aceh suspected of being linked to the Southeast Asian terror network Jemaah Islamiyah.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono told his Cabinet colleagues on Friday that the group had set up in Aceh believing that Indonesian security forces had lost interest in the socially conservative province since a violent separatist movement ended.

Separatist rebels signed a peace agreement with Indonesia’s government in 2005, ending 29 years of fighting and making the province semiautonomous.

Yudhoyono said the terrorists were not former members of the now defunct Free Aceh Movement, the only militant group previously known to operate in Aceh.

“This is a really well organized terrorist group who chose Aceh as its training region,” Yudhoyono said.

In his opening address to government ministers, which reporters are allowed to hear before the Cabinet meets behind closed doors, Yudhoyono said he had received reports that the alleged terrorist leader was not from Aceh.

Authorities have not made public the leader’s identity or said if the leader is among the 14 suspected militants under arrest. Police have said that the prisoners include a man who allegedly received terrorism training overseas.

Senior police refused to comment on Friday.

The 14 were flown from Banda Aceh on Friday to national police headquarters in Jakarta for further questioning, a police official said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

The men were caught in several raids beginning Feb. 22, when four were arrested by police after a gunbattle in a suspected militant training camp in Aceh’s mountains, police spokesman Maj. Gen. Edward Aritonang said.

They confessed to undergoing paramilitary training, including weapons use and hand-to-hand combat, at the camp in preparation for a terrorist attack, he said, declining to specify the alleged target.

Under Indonesia’s tough counterterrorism laws enacted in 2003, planning a terrorist attack can be punished by up to 20 years in prison.

Another suspect was fatally shot by police after he fled with two men from a bus that was stopped at a police checkpoint early Wednesday, Aritonang said. Witnesses said the other two men escaped.