Indonesia police find no link between recently arrests in Aceh and Malacca terrorist threat

Arrests in Indonesia not tied to Malacca threat

JAKARTA, Indonesia — Indonesian authorities have not found a link between several suspected militants arrested recently in Aceh and a threat to tankers in the nearby Malacca Strait, a government minister and police said Friday.

The officials have effectively ruled out the possibility that the suspects, some of whom have been interrogated by police for more than a week, are the source of intelligence that led the Singapore navy to warn this week that an unnamed terrorist group was planning attacks on oil tankers in the strait, one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes.

The warning came as Indonesian police waged an ongoing crackdown in Aceh on militants suspected of ties to the Southeast Asian terror network Jemaah Islamiyah.

At least 14 militants have been caught in a series of police raids since Feb. 22 and charged with plotting terrorist attacks. They were flown to national police headquarters in Jakarta on Friday for further interrogation.

Security Minister Djoko Suyanto said the suspects had not been linked to the threat against tankers.

“This has not yet been linked to the plot to attack Singapore tankers,” Djoko told reporters following a Cabinet meeting.

Indonesia’s Police Chief Gen. Bambang Hendarso Danuri, who earlier told reporters that a potential link was under investigation, confirmed Friday that no link that been found.

Police said that the militants in Aceh have gone on the offensive, ambushing a counterterrorism squad on Thursday that was hunting them in remote jungle near Lamkabeue village,

A policeman was believed killed, although his body and weapon were not recovered, and another four officers were badly wounded, Danuri said. He declined for security reasons to say how many police were in the squad.

At least three of the 27 militants were wounded in the ambush, but escaped with the group, he said.

Danuri said more than 30 suspected militants remained at large in several parts of Aceh, and the police crackdown will continue.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono told his Cabinet colleagues that the group had set up in Aceh believing that Indonesian security forces had lost interest in the socially conservative province since a violent separatist movement ended.

Separatist rebels signed a peace agreement with Indonesia’s government in 2005, ending 29 years of fighting and making the province semiautonomous.

Yudhoyono said the terrorists were not former members of the now defunct Free Aceh Movement, the only militant group previously known to operate in Aceh.

“This is a really well organized terrorist group who chose Aceh as its training region,” Yudhoyono said.

In his opening address to government ministers, which reporters are allowed to hear before the Cabinet meets behind closed doors, Yudhoyono said he had received reports that the alleged terrorist leader was not from Aceh.

Danuri declined to name the leader or say whether the leader was among the 14 suspected militants under arrest. Police have said that the prisoners include a man who allegedly received terrorism training overseas.

Police say all 14 arrested had confessed to undergoing paramilitary training, including weapons use and hand-to-hand combat, at a camp, that was raided last month in a hour-long gun battle, in preparation for a terrorist attack.

Danuri declined to name a target for the attack. They face up to 20 years in prison if convicted.