At least 20 terrorist suspects arrested in Indonesia’s East Java within week

Indonesia’s anti-terror police have arrested 20 suspected terrorists with alleged ties to the global terror network Islamic State in separate operations in East Java province within a week, a police officer said on Tuesday.

The East Java Police spokesman Gatot Repli Handoko told reporters in the province’s capital Surabaya on Tuesday that the counter-terrorism squad Densus 88 on Monday arrested eight people separately in Surabaya, Malang and Bojonegoro.

Last Friday, the police held 12 terrorist suspects who are allegedly members of Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) militant network that is affiliated with al-Qaida in separate operations in four cities in the province.

On the operations, the police seized pistols, bullets, swords and four flags depicting the Islamic State symbol as evidence.

The group had allegedly plotted attacks and prepared a hideout, the police said.

The Indonesia-based extremist Jemaah Islamiyah group was behind the 2002 Bali bombings which killed more than 200 people on the holiday island. The group was declared an illegal organization in 2018.

Source: Xinhua Net