Australians detain six Indonesians amid antiterror crackdown
Australians detain six Indonesians amid antiterror crackdown
Agence France-Presse, Sydney
Australian police arrested six Indonesian men for visa
violations Thursday amid a broader crackdown on suspected
sympathizers of a radical Indonesian Islamic group accused of
plotting terrorist attacks, officials said.
A spokesman for the Department of Immigration and Cultural
Affairs (DIMA) said the six were arrested for working illegally
in the northern Sydney suburb of Dee Why and were not suspected
of any links to terrorist activities.
"All those detained were found working in a factory in Dee
Why," an immigration department spokesman said.
"Two of them had their visas canceled because they were
working in breach of the visa conditions and the other four were
on expired bridging visas," he said.
The arrests came on the fifth day of wide-ranging anti-
terrorist operations by federal police (AFP) and agents of the
Australian Security and Intelligence Organization (ASIO)
targeting suspected members of Jamaah Islamiyah, an Indonesian
group held responsible for the October 12 bombing in Bali and
other terrorist attacks.
"There's no connection with the other activity that's been
happening yesterday with ASIO and the AFP, no connection at all,"
the immigration official said.
"This is an occurrence which happens quite regularly with our
compliance officers who usually get community information and
check it out," he said.
Police and ASIO agents have raided several homes of Indonesian
Muslims across Australia since Sunday in search of possible
members of Jamaah Islamiyah or al-Qaeda.
The most recent raids took place Thursday in Melbourne, but
there has been only one arrest reported, of a Sydney resident
detained for overstaying his visa.
Jakarta Thursday protested against the raids, which have
targeted Indonesian Muslims who have been living in Australia for
years, and warned the move could hamper cooperation in the fight
against terrorism.
"We have conveyed to Australia our concern about reports that
Indonesian citizens there have been treated heavy-handedly,"
foreign ministry spokesman Marty Natalegawa said.
"The point is we don't want these incidents to spoil the
already excellent relations between Indonesia and Australia in
the investigation of the Bali bombing," he added.