Boarding houses must be monitored

Damar Harsanto, The Jakarta Post/Jakarta

In a bid to beef up security in the city, Jakarta Governor Sutiyoso reiterated his call to local leaders to intensify local body efforts to monitor the use of boarding houses and rented buildings.

Sutiyoso met with five Jakarta mayors and the Kepulauan Seribu regent on Tuesday. He also plans to meet leaders of regency and municipality administrations in Greater Jakarta -- Tangerang, Bogor, Bekasi and Depok -- on Wednesday.

"Any effort to increase security in Jakarta will be a failure without support from those in the Greater Jakarta area, who must increase their level of alertness," Sutiyoso said on Tuesday at City Hall. "While preparing their attacks in Jakarta, the terrorists roam around the capital's outskirts."

The police's preliminary investigation into last week's bomb blast outside the Australian Embassy in Kuningan, South Jakarta, revealed the suspects had rented a house in Kampung Menceng, Cengkareng, West Jakarta, to prepare the attack. The police found traces of explosive materials at the house.

Thursday's bomb killed nine people and injured over 180 others.

Before the Marriott bombing in August last year, suspects had also stored and rigged the bomb used for the attack in rented houses in several areas in the city, police said.

Five months after the Marriott attack, chemicals exploded prematurely at a rented home in Cimanggis, Depok, south of Jakarta, where a group of militants were holding a bomb-making session. No one was hurt in the blast, which caused only minor damage to the roof of the house.

Police have captured two men suspected of the Marriott bombing attack, Tohir and Ismail in Cirebon, West Java. They believe Azahari bin Husin and Noordin M. Top had stayed in a rented home in Bandung but the two had left when police raided the premises late last year.

"The governor ordered us to improve the monitoring of boarding and rented houses by implementing a directive, which requires a visitor staying for over 24 hours in an area to report to the neighborhood unit (RT) chief," West Jakarta Mayor Sarimun Hadisaputra said.

"(Sutiyoso) also called on RT chiefs and community unit (RW) heads to start collecting data on newcomers living in these houses in their respective areas."