Terrorists Plotting Attacks During Ramadan in Indonesia’s Surabaya: Police

Jakarta, 05 Ramadan 1437/10 June 2016 (MINA) – A senior police officer said on Thursday that arrested suspects were plotting attacks in public spaces and police stations in Indonesia’s East Java capital of Surabaya during the fasting month of Ramadan.

Police spokesperson Boy Rafli Amar said according to interrogation of three suspected terrorists arrested in the second largest city of Surabaya, they had plans to carry out suicide bombings.

“They wanted the attacks be conducted like the one occurred in Jakarta,” Xinhua quoted Boy as saying.

Eight people were killed and 24 others injured when attackers fired shots and detonated bombs in Jakarta’s Thamrin street on Jan. 14.

The terror attack was the deadliest since 2009 in the Indonesian capital.

One of the arrested, who goes with initial name of PHP, was an ex-convict in a drug case and was released from Surabaya’s prison in April 2014. During his jail term, he made intensive communications with two terror convicts in the jail.

PHP and two other terror suspects with initial names of JR and FN were arrested by Indonesian police anti-terror squad of Special Detachment 88 on Wednesday in different places in Surabaya.

In a search of their houses, the police discovered three assembled bombs, a gun, explosives, chemical substances, cables, dagger and cellular phones allegedly to be used as the bomb detonators. (T/R07/R01)

Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA)