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Indonesia Suicide Bomber Attacks Java Police Station Mosque

16 April 2011 00:16 (UTC +04:00)

Baku â€“ APA. A suicide bomber detonated his device at a police-station mosque in Cirebon in Indonesiaâ€™s West Java province, killing himself and wounding 26 other people in the countryâ€™s first such attack since July 2009, APA reports quoting â€œBloombergâ€.
The bombing, which occurred at 12:15 p.m. Jakarta time yesterday, wounded 21 police officers, four civil servants and an imam at the mosque, National Police Deputy Chief Nanan Soekarna told reporters yesterday in Jakarta. Police havenâ€™t identified the bomber and are collecting evidence, he said.
Indonesia, a secular state with the worldâ€™s biggest population of Muslims, has stepped up raids against terror suspects since 2009 bombings at Jakartaâ€™s JW Marriott and Ritz- Carlton hotels killed nine people, including the two attackers. Authorities have blamed Jemaah Islamiyah, an al-Qaeda-linked group, for bombings at hotels, nightclubs and embassies that claimed more than 200 lives in the past decade.
â€œPolice have to realize that there is a shift in the target,â€ Noor Huda Ismail, founder of Jakartaâ€™s Institute of International Peace Building, said by phone yesterday from Semarang, Central Java. â€œThe bombers used to attack the U.S. and its allies. Now theyâ€™ve turned to the state symbols that are considered their enemy.â€
Pakistan notified Indonesian officials last month it arrested a man believed to be Umar Patek, who is accused of helping carry out the October 2002 nightclub bombings in the resort island of Bali that killed 202 people, Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Tehmina Janjua told reporters in Islamabad on March 31.
Terrorist Networks
The arrest may shed light on terrorist networks in the region, according to an International Crisis Group adviser.
Patekâ€™s arrest â€œdoes not mean an end to terrorist attacks, only that his information may lead to better understanding of networks and therefore more scope for preventive programs,â€ Sidney Jones, a Jakarta-based senior adviser with Crisis Group, said in an e-mail April 1.
Patek â€œwill have information that everyone wants on the nature of terrorist links between Pakistan and Southeast Asia, between Indonesia and Mindanao, and perhaps between Mindanao and the Middle East,â€ Jones wrote in the e-mail. Mindanao is an island of the Philippines where Islamist insurgents have waged a war for independence.
Noordin Mohammad Top
Police in 2002 described Patek as a Javanese Arab who lived in Indonesian towns such as Solo, Yogyakarta and Pemalang. He was accused of placing a getaway bike at a mosque to divert the attention of police, Chief Investigator I Made Mangku Pastika said at the time.
In September 2009, police killed militant leader Noordin Mohammad Top, who was suspected of involvement in every major anti-Western attack in Indonesia since 2002. In March of the same year they killed terrorist leader and suspected Bali bomber Dulmatin and two others.
The rupiah traded at 8,662 per dollar, unchanged after the bombing. The currency rose 0.3 percent to 8,662 yesterday. The Jakarta Composite index rose 0.6 percent to 3,730.51 as of the 4 p.m. local-time close.
On Feb. 10, Indonesian cleric Abu Bakar Bashir went to trial in Jakarta on terrorism charges that could bring the death penalty four years after his acquittal for links to the Bali nightclub bombings.
No Terrorism Conviction
While Bashir has served two jail terms since 2003, authorities have never convicted him of terrorism as part of a broader crackdown on militants under President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.
Police arrested Bashir, 72, last year and accused him of contributing funds to a terrorist training camp in Aceh province. The charges could result in a sentence ranging from three years in prison to death, Bashirâ€™s lawyer, Achmad Michdan, said in an interview in February.
Bashirâ€™s arrest last year followed a February raid on a training camp in Aceh that resulted in a list of more than 100 terrorism suspects, according to the government.
In September 2009 police killed militant leader Noordin Mohammad Top, who was suspected of involvement in every major anti-Western attack in Indonesia since 2002. In March of the same year they killed terrorist leader and suspected Bali bomber Dulmatin and two others.
Indonesia allowed Aceh to impose Islamic Shariah law in 2001 in a bid to win over the population during the central governmentâ€™s war with separatists there. More than 98 percent of Acehnese are Muslims who mostly adhere to a stricter interpretation of Islam than others in the country.