Antiterror desk anticipates more hijack threats

Antiterror desk anticipates more hijack threats

Tiarma Siboro, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Hijacking threats received by two Indonesian airlines, Garuda
Indonesia and Lion Air, served as an early warning of a new trend
of terrorism here, chairman of the antiterror desk Insp. Gen.
Ansyaad Mbai said on Sunday.

Ansyaad said Coordinating Minister for Political and Security
Affairs Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, the supervisor of the desk, had
identified more bomb attacks and public transportation hijackings
as possible forms of terror facing the country following the bomb
attack in Bali last October.

"We know of hijack threats on two local airline companies. We
consider the threats an early warning for us that another kind of
terror is on the way, after threats of bomb attacks have been
effective to scare people over the past few years," Ansyaad said.

He was commenting on the hijack threats received by Garuda and
Lion Air before leaving Kuala Lumpur for Surabaya, the capital of
East Java on Saturday.

An official at Juanda airport in Surabaya, said the threat was
forwarded via telex by officials in Kuala Lumpur airport who also
asked their Indonesian counterparts to step up security measures.

Another Juanda airport official in charge of the Air Traffic
Control (ATC), according to Antara, said that Lion Air had
informed him of the threat which had been sent by "unknown
people" through a facsimile.

"Of course we are coordinating with related institutions,
including the police, the military and some ministries, to deal
with the report," Ansyaad told The Jakarta Post.

National Police spokespersons were unavailable for comment.

Elite Indonesian troops freed all passengers from a Garuda
flight that was hijacked and diverted to Bangkok in 1980 in an
operation hailed by many as one of the country's most successful
antiterror missions.