The Jakarta Post, 4/16/2007 3:02:06 PM
Report: Terror network Jemaah Islamiyah has new hit squad in
Indonesia
SINGAPORE (AP): Southeast Asian terror network Jemaah Islamiyah has set up an
assassination squad and made a target list that includes police, judges and
prosecutors, Indonesia's anti-terror chief said in a newspaper report published
Monday.
The hit squad is believed to have about 100 operatives who would target both locals
and foreigners in Indonesia, Maj. Gen. Ansyaad Mbai told Singapore's Straits Times
newspaper.
The report did not say if the new group would try to kill any people outside Indonesia.
He said the assassination plan was uncovered after a series of raids in Java last
month that resulted in the detention of seven suspected members of the
al-Qaida-linked Jemaah Islamiyah.
The Straits Times said investigators also found charts mapping out the group's new
structure, as well as a large arms cache that included M-16 rifles, ammunition,
detonators and more than 70kilograms (154 pounds) of TNT explosives.
Ansyaad said the target list included the rector of a Christian university in Central Java
and an official of the Central Java Attorney-General's Office.
"We also know from their propaganda that the West, the Christians, are their enemy.
It is logical that they could target Christian priests," he was quoted as saying.
Jemaah Islamiyah is seeking to create an Islamic state across Southeast Asia. The
network has been blamed for a string of deadly bombings in Indonesia - the world's
most populous Muslim country - in the last five years. It is considered responsible for
the Oct. 12, 2002, bombings on the Indonesian island of Bali that killed 202 people.
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