Indonesia hunts for bomb plotters amid concern about new tactics

Two more suspects on run after Jakarta police arrest woman

JAKARTA // Indonesian police were yesterday hunting for more suspects linked to a foiled plot to bomb targets in Jakarta, with the arrest of a woman a day earlier pointing to a new recruitment tactic by militants, they said.

Authorities are also concerned about smaller cells being formed by militants in Muslim-majority Indonesia, which is grappling with a resurgence in home-grown militancy, inspired in part by ISIL.

Counter-terrorism police were looking for two more suspects after the arrests on Saturday of a woman and two men near Ja- karta on suspicion of planning a bomb attack on vital national assets, said national police spokesman Awi Setiyono.

“It is possible that their method to recruit new actors is not just limited to men,” Mr Setiyono said, noting that recruitment had previously been limited to males. “The point is they are looking for people who want to wage jihad.”

Police said they had intercepted a letter the woman had intended to send to her parents, which said she wanted to carry out acts of violence. A bomb was found in a room she rented near Jakarta. The suspects had been communicating with and received money from Bahrun Naim, an Indonesian militant known to be fighting with ISIL in Syria, Mr Setiyono said. “On the orders of Bahrun Naim, they formed small cells and assembled bombs.” Naim has been linked to a number of failed attacks in Indonesia this year, including a July suicide bombing in the Javanese city of Solo, which killed the bomber but wounded only one person.

He was also linked to a suspected militant arrested during a raid last month where police said they found enough chemicals to build a bomb twice as powerful as the one used in the Bali bombing of 2002, which killed 202 people.

Indonesia suffered its first ISIL- linked attack this year, when a gun-and-bomb assault in Jakarta killed four people.

Security is usually stepped up in Indonesia at this time of year after attacks during Christmas and New Year celebrations.