Indonesia arrests militants setting up jihadist training camp

Hanoi (VNA) - Indonesia’s counterterrorism squad has arrested four suspected Islamic militants who were trying to establish a jihadist training camp in eastern Indonesia and likely had links with Abu Sayyaf militants in the southern Philippines.

National Police spokesman Boy Rafli Amar said the suspects were arrested in several locations on the island of Java on March 23 and were connected to four militants ambushed by police on the same day near Jakarta. One of the militants was shot dead in the raid.

Amar said all eight were members of Jemaah Anshorut Daulah, a network of Indonesian extremist groups that formed in 2015 and pledges allegiance to the self-proclaimed Islamic State (IS).

One of the suspects told police his role was to purchase rifles from militants in the Philippines and he had traveled there several times.

The group was planning to establish a new jihadist training camp after IS-affiliated militants based in Poso on Sulawesi island were decimated by a months-long police and military campaign that also killed their leader, Abu Wardah Santoso.

Amar said earlier investigations found that five guns had been sent from the Philippines to Indonesian militants. Two of them were used in a Jakarta suicide bombing and gun attack in January last year that killed eight people, including four attackers, and injured almost 30 others.-VNA