Police work on terror threats

Police work on terror threats

Theresia Sufa and Abdul Khalik, The Jakarta Post, Bogor/Jakarta

The police worked fast. After receiving a report from a
resident in Cicurug district, Bogor, intelligence officers
arrested on Tuesday evening a newcomer to the area.

The man, who speaks with a heavy Malay accent, moved one month
ago from the neighboring district of Parungkuda. He has
Indonesian and Singaporean passports.

The man claimed he was born in Banten but was raised in Medan,
North Sumatra. After living on Batam island, Riau, for several
years, he and his wife moved to Bogor.

The police suspect that the man's school and marriage
certificates are false.

The city's antiterrorism police unit is also working around
the clock to secure the city.

The day after the bomb attacks in Bali, several police
officers knocked on the door of Hartono, chief of Neighborhood
Unit No. 12 in Sawangan subdistrict, Depok.

"The detectives came to my house asking for residents' data.
They told me to inform them if I saw something suspicious,"
Hartono told The Jakarta Post.

Now he is very busy informing residents, one by one, to be
watchful of newcomers to the area.

On Wednesday he discovered many people had recently rented
houses but had not been asked for their identification cards.

To complete his report to the police, Hartono re-registered
all of the people in his neighborhood.

Sawangan is a suburban area that borders Jakarta and would
make a strategic hideout for terrorists planning to attack the
capital.

Jakarta Police chief Insp. Gen. Firman Gani said on Wednesday
that after the bomb attacks on Oct. 1 in Bali that killed 22
people and injured over 130 others, the terrorists may have
entered Jakarta to send a "louder" message.

The city has been on full alert since Saturday and has readied
two-thirds of the police's 26,000 officers to secure the capital
against possible attack.

Police officers are surveilling access points to the capital
and the number of officers securing foreign embassies, shopping
malls, hotels and other places frequented by foreigners has been
doubled.

The antiterror desk Densus 88 AT at the city police has been
honing its skills in the field at the National Police's center of
education in Megamendung, West Java.

However, past experience has shown that a serious
preoccupation with security lasts only as long as the public
remains anxious.

Intelligence information reported in May that a group under
the leadership of fugitives Malaysian Azahari Husin and Noordin
Moh Top had a map of the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta, which coupled
with the bomb attack in Central Sulawesi also in May led to
extreme concern over the security of the city.

The police conducted stringent vehicle checks across the
capital and arrested dozens of people on terrorism charges. But
they were later released due to lack of evidence.

In June, however, everything was back to normal.

"We are busy when a bomb explodes or a foreign embassy issues
a travel warning. But after one or two weeks, we can relax," an
investigator with Densus 88 AT told the Post.

City police spokesman Sr. Comr. I Ketut Untung Yoga Ana said
the police could not maintain a maximum security presence all
year round due to limited resources.

Hartono said this was no surprise.

"In the last few years, the police were here every time there
was a bombing somewhere. But when nothing big happened within a
certain period, we wouldn't see them again."