The Jakarta Post, Thu, January 28 2016
An explosion occurred in front of a shop-house owned by a local named Yakot on Jl. Yusuf Nasri Lorong Angkasa Pura in Jambi at 3 a.m. on Wednesday.
Jambi Police’s Mobile Brigade (Brimob) deputy chief Adj. Sr. Comr. Yuri Karsono said people claimed they heard three explosions, which were suspected to come from a homemade bomb. No casualties were reported.
Investigators have yet to determine who placed the device in front of the shop-house of Yakot, who ran away before the bomb exploded.
“The explosion leads us to believe there was a bomb. The fragments have been taken away by Jambi Police Gegana [bomb squad],” Yuri said on Wednesday.
He added that investigators suspected there were two perpetrators.
Meanwhile, Jambi Police deputy chief Sr. Comr. Nana Sudjana said officers found explosive material, a timer, nails and pieces of wire at the scene.
A note was left by the perpetrators that indicated that the bomb was directed at someone identified only as SU.
“We are still investigating the motive,” he said
Separately, National Police spokesman Insp. Gen. Anton Charliyan said investigators believed that the explosion was not connected to a terrorist attack at the Cakrawala building on Jl. Thamrin in Central Jakarta.
“Although we also found some nails [in the explosive], our investigation leads us to believe that there are no similarities to the attack on Jl. Thamrin,” he said at the National Police headquarters in South Jakarta.
Although investigators have yet to determine the motive of Wednesday’s explosion, Anton said he suspected that if a terrorist group was responsible for the explosion, it was highly likely that they were vying for public attention, just as the attackers on Jl. Thamrin were.
“They want to show that they exist and that even if they get caught, they’re still among us,” he said.
The police have been on high alert for terrorists and radical groups following the fatal attack
in Jakarta. Five alleged terrorists were killed: two by suicide bombs while three were killed in gunfights. Two civilians fell victim while dozens of others were injured in the attack.
The National Police’s Densus 88 counterterrorism squad have arrested, detained or shot dead almost two dozen men in the past two weeks, with the latest being the arrest of two men in Luwu, South Sulawesi, for allegedly being part of the Santoso-led East Indonesia Mujahiddin (MIT) group.
More than 2,000 police and military officers have been being deployed to Poso, Central Sulawesi, in an operation called the Operation Tinombala, to scour a forested area believed to be the hiding place of Santoso and his 45 followers.
National Police chief Gen. Badrodin Haiti earlier said that Santoso was also the leader of the Islamic State (IS) movement in Indonesia.
After the Thamrin attack, the police claimed that Bahrun Naim had join IS and planned the attack from Syria.
Bahrun, a computer science graduate of the state-run Sebelas Maret University in Surakarta, Central Java, is believed to have transferred money to one of the attackers to finance the attack.
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do 28 jan 2016 - 20:30