Three terror suspects arrested in Indonesia
Indonesia arrested three men on Saturday over alleged links to a terror group accused of planning an attack on the Singapore embassy in the capital Jakarta, police said. National police spokesman Saud Usman Nasution said the arrests took place in Tangerang city on the outskirts of Jakarta. One of the suspects was shot in the leg by anti-terror police as he attempted to escape. “An investigation is still ongoing and we cannot reveal for the time being their involvement in terror,” he said, adding that during the morning raid police seized two firearms and more than a dozen bullets.
An unnamed anti-terror police officer told AFP the three were linked to 11 terror suspects arrested in July, including ringleader Abu Umar who planned the embassy attack. Umar had close links with Ahmad Sayid Maulana, killed in a police raid last year at his house, where police found a map of Singapore’s train network. The underground train station on Orchard Road shopping belt had been circled on the map. A map of an airport in the city of General Santos in the southern Philippine island of Mindanao was also among the items found in the house.
Following the July arrest, national anti-terror deputy chief Petrus Golose said Abu Umar led the group planning the attack, but there was no mention of when they intended to carry it out. The group was also believed to be involved in smuggling weapons into Indonesia from the Philippines through Malaysia. Indonesia has been rocked by a series of attacks staged by the regional terror network Jemaah Islamiyah in recent years, including the 2002 Bali bombings which killed 202 people.