Houses checked in terrorist hunt

Abdul Khalik, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Feeling an obligation to help police in their duty to find terror suspects, Dini, 22, a student of the University of Indonesia, in Depok, West Java, welcomed a police check on her rented room.

"Several men knocked on my room's door ... Behind the door, two friendly detectives introduced themselves before asking for my identity card. They were very polite," she told The Jakarta Post on Monday.

Rini, a Muslim who wears the jilbab, or head scarf, said she did not mind letting officers search her room as long as they conducted the check courteously.

Neither did other tenants in her rented house object nor grumble about the police presence, she said.

Rini's neighborhood is one of several city border areas the Jakarta Police have been targeting since last week. Other door-to-door searches were carried out in Bogor and Bekasi, West Java, and in Tangerang, Banten.

On Friday, police officers were seen searching a Senen neighborhood in Central Jakarta before later moving to Depok.

On Saturday, Bogor Police conducted spot-checks on vehicles and vans for bomb materials while the Bekasi Police searched for terrorist hideouts.

Jakarta Police operations chief Sr. Comr. Komang Udayana said police had deployed thousands of officers to many places across the capital since the death of the Malaysian bomb-maker Azahari bin Husin last Wednesday in Batu, East Java. His partner, Noordin Moh. Top, and other accomplices are still on the run.

"We anticipate that they may enter the Greater Jakarta area and prepare bomb attacks here during Christmas and New Year. That's why we will check each newcomer's identity card," Komang told the Post.

Earlier, Jakarta Police chief Insp. Gen. Firman Gani said they had started large-scale searches in the evening in many places across the city after they received a warning from counter-terror squad unit Detachment 88, that documents found at Azahari's hideout mentioned Jakarta as the next big bombing target.

Police are also cooperating with neighborhood and community chiefs and military offices at the district level to detect suspicious newcomers.

"We will receive data on new residents in each area from neighborhood and community chiefs. After that, we will monitor and check them. By doing so, we can get a complete picture of neighborhoods across the city," Komang said.

Police also asked neighborhood and community chiefs to require every guest wishing to spend the night in their neighborhoods to report to the subdistrict office every 24 hours.