Terror Suspects Planned to Attack Police With Machetes on New Year's Eve
Jakarta. The two alleged terrorists who were shot dead and the two arrested in Purwakarta, West Java, over the weekend were reportedly planning to attack police officers with machetes on New Year's Eve.
Members of the National Police's counterterrorism unit, Densus 88, moved against the four suspects, identified as Abu Sofi, Abu Faiz, Rizal and Ivan, during raids on two separate locations in Jatiluhur subdistrict on Sunday (25/12).
National Police spokesman Brig. Gen. Rikwanto said the four were all part of the same group, led by Abu Faiz. They were allegedly planning to attack a traffic police post in Purwakarta next Saturday.
"The plan was that two of them would attack the officers with sharp instruments, while the other two would keep a lookout," Rikwanto told reporters in Jakarta on Monday. He added that the suspects chose the traffic police post as their target because it would have minimum security.
Counterterrorism officers shot dead Abu Sofi and Abu Faiz when they allegedly resisted arrest during a raid on a houseboat on Jatiluhur dam, following the arrest of Ivan and Rizal in a separate raid in nearby Cibinong village in Jatiluhur earlier.
Rikwanto said the officers found no bomb-making materials during a subsequent search of a house the suspects previously rented in Padalarang, West Java.
"But there was a scale. This indicates that there were materials to be weighed," he said, suggesting that this may have been used in the bomb-making process.
Rizal and Ivan were taken to the headquarters of the police's Mobile Brigade Corps (Brimob) in Depok, West Java, on Sunday. The bodies of Abu Sofi and Abu Faiz were taken to the Police Hospital in Kramat Jati, East Jakarta, for postmortem examinations.
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