Twelve people have been arrested over an alleged terrorist plot to attack an archbishop and police stations in the Indonesian province of Papua, local police officials said.
[AFP]
Twelve suspected Islamic militants taken into custody in a southern district of Indonesia’s troubled Papua region had planned to attack a local archbishop and police stations there, authorities said Tuesday.
The suspects arrested in Papua’s Merauke regency on Friday and Sunday were linked to a cell of Jamaah Ansharut Daulah, an Indonesian militant network affiliated with the so-called Islamic State (IS) group, police said.
Indonesian authorities had blamed JAD for suicide attacks that targeted churches in other parts of the Muslim-majority country in March 2021 and May 2018.
“The targets were the bishop and police stations in Merauke,” Untung Sangaji, Merauke police chief, told BenarNews.