The Jakarta Post, Jakarta, Sat, July 11 2015,
National Police chief Gen. Badrodin Haiti confirmed on Friday that an explosion at the Alam Sutera shopping mall in an upscale neighborhood of South Tangerang on Thursday was caused by a homemade bomb.
“I can confirm that it was a homemade bomb, but there was not much of an effect because they used a limited amount of materials,” he said at the National Police headquarters in South Jakarta.
Badrodin explained that the bomb was made out of materials easily found in stores.
He added that the materials used in the homemade bomb were similar to those used by terrorism convicts in Cibiru, Bandung, in West Java.
“We will focus our search on that group,” Badrodin said.
Furthermore, he said that investigators would need to study the security cameras at the Alam Sutera mall to see if the suspects who planted the bomb could be seen.
The Cibiru incident in 2010 involved several college-educated hardliners who tested chemical bombs in Sumedang, West Java, before they planted them at several vital installations.
Muhammad Iqbal alias Kiki alias Ahong, the assembler of the bomb, received a six-year prison term in 2011 while his accomplices Fahrur Rozi Tanjung and Budi Hariyanto received six and five years respectively.
Their arrest came shortly after the police received a lead from the arrest of the spiritual leader of Indonesian terrorism, Abu Bakar Ba’asyir. Ba’asyir is now serving 15 years in prison on terrorism charges.
The Cibiru group is also associated with the bombing of the Indonesian embassy in Paris in 2012.
Then National Counterterrorism Agency (BNPT) chairman Ansyaad Mbai said there was a link between the group and a French citizen by the name of Frederik Jean Silva, a fugitive terrorism suspect.
Indonesia has not witnessed any major attacks since 2009 when terrorists linked to an al-Qaeda offshoot, Jamaah Islamiyah, attacked the JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotels in Jakarta, killing seven people and seriously injuring dozens.
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zo 12 jul 2015 - 0:50