Indonesia: Police Foil Plot to Target Presidential Palace with Chemical Bombs

Indonesian police said Tuesday that they foiled an Islamic State-linked terror plot to attack the Presidential Palace with chemical bombs, by arresting five suspects and seizing explosives and bomb-making material in raids near the capital Jakarta.

Investigators uncovered the plot while interrogating two of the suspects – a husband and wife – who revealed that they were planning to launch their attacks this month, possibly on Aug. 17 to coincide with the country’s Independence Day, Yusri Yunus, a spokesman for West Java provincial police, told BenarNews.

Members of Densus 88, the police’s counter-terrorist special forces squad, and officers with the province’s police force found the chemicals while raiding a house in Bandung, the capital of West Java located about 151 km (94 miles) from Jakarta.

During the raid officers found a “ready-to-detonate chemical bomb” that was different from pressure-cooker bombs, which are often filled with buckshot pellets and nails, Yusri said.

“This bomb, upon explosion, can burn your skin and, if it is inhaled, can cause breathing problems and it can burn organs,” Yusri said in a phone interview.

“They were planning to detonate a chemical bomb at the Mobile Brigade Command Headquarters in Depok, targeting police officers working in the field, [and] also in the State Palace,” Yusri said. Depok is a densely-populated city on the southern border of Jakarta.

Yusri said members of a police forensic laboratory team had to wear oxygen masks during the raid.

“The smell was quite strong,” he said.

The five suspects were believed to be affiliated with the Bandung chapter of the militant group Jamaah Ansharut Daulah (JAD).

Full story: BenarNews

Rina Chadijah
Jakarta