News / Asia

Indonesia Arrests 11 in Terror Plot to Bomb US Embassy, Other Targets

Indonesian police officers stand guard outside a building after a raid in Solo, Central Java, Indonesia, Saturday, Oct. 27, 2012.
Indonesian police officers stand guard outside a building after a raid in Solo, Central Java, Indonesia, Saturday, Oct. 27, 2012.
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VOA News

Indonesian police say 11 people have been arrested in a suspected plot to attack the U.S. embassy in Jakarta and other domestic and foreign targets.

National police spokesman Suhardi Alius said Saturday the arrests by a special anti-terror unit took place in four provinces.  

Alius said the suspects, members of the newly-formed Harakah Sunni Movement for Indonesian Society, were preparing to launch a series of strikes.  He said targets also included a plaza near the Australian embassy in Jakarta, a local office of the American mining giant Freeport-McMoRan and the U.S. consulate in Surabaya.  A police facility in Central Java was also targeted.

Authorities say evidence from arrest sites include bombs, ammunition, detonators, bomb-making manuals and other explosives materials. 

Neither the U.S. nor Australian embassies has commented on the arrests, and it was not immediately disclosed how far the attack plans had advanced.

Earlier this month, Indonesian police said they had uncovered evidence of a planned terrorist attack on dignitaries attending ceremonies on the resort island of Bali marking the 10th anniversary of bombings that killed 202 people.

The October 2002 attacks on two Bali nightclubs were carried out by militants from the al-Qaida-linked Jemaah Islamiyah group.  The bombings were followed by a wave of terror attacks across Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim country. 

 

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by: Davis K. Thanjan from: New York
October 27, 2012 11:16 PM
While there is a sigh of relief after the arrest of 11 terrorists, the Muslim fundamentalist terrorism still remains a threat in Indonesia. These Moslem fundamentalists crop up in all Moslem countries. If the vast majority of terrorists in the world are Moslems, there is something fundamentally wrong in the Moslem belief around the world.

The majority of Moslems are peace loving. How can this vast majority of peace loving Moslems influence or change the behavior of a small number of Moslem fundamentalist terrorists? Unless peace prevail in Moslem countries, terrorism remain a threat to those countires and the countries with minority Moslem population such as China, Russia, US, EU, Israel, Philippines and India.

Moslem fundamentalists have to learn to coexist with other religious groups in Moslem countries and in countries where they are minorities. Moslem fundamentalists does not tolerate any other religion, attacking (1) Christians in the US, Europe, Pakistan, Nigeria and Philippines (2) Jews in Israel, (3) Hindus in India and (4) Buddhists in Myanmar. This hate and intolerance of other religions is the root cause of the Moslem fundamentalist terrorism around the world.

Peace loving Moslems cannot stay as bystanders to the carnage of Moslem fundamentalist terrorism. Many times Moslems themselves become the victims of Moslem fundamentalist terrorism because of ideological differences within Moslem religion as seen in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Yemen.

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