E-MAIL THIS LINK
To: 

ISIS plot to detonate bombs remotely using WIFI is foiled as police round-up dozens of terror suspects in Indonesia
[Daily Mail, where America gets its news]
  • Police announced the arrests on Friday and showed off bomb-making evidence

  • They said they had learned of a plan to use WIFI to blow up explosive backpacks

  • The suspects are thought to have been plotting carnage when election results are announced next week

  • World's largest Muslim majority nation has seen a string of attacks by Islamists

Some 29 suspects were rounded up this month alone, with 60 in all detained since the start of the year in raids across the Southeast Asian nation, they said.

Eight other suspects had been killed in confrontations with authorities, police said, including the wife of a militant who blew up herself and a child following a dramatic standoff at their home in March.

Some arrested suspects were skilled bomb makers and had fought alongside the jihadist group in Syria, as well as members of local extremist network Jemaah Anshurat Daulah (JAD), police said.

JAD has pledged allegiance to IS and was blamed for a wave of suicide bombings at churches in Indonesia's second-biggest city Surabaya last year.

Update at 9:50 a.m. EDT:
U.S. embassy issues Indonesia security alert ahead of election results

[Jpost] The U.S. embassy in Jakarta has issued a security alert ahead of election results due on Wednesday, as Indonesian authorities have arrested nearly 30 suspected militants, including some who police say are able to detonate bombs using Wi-Fi networks.

The embassy advised U.S. citizens to avoid areas where large demonstrations may occur in Jakarta, and in other cities including Surabaya in East Java and Medan in North Sumatra, in a statement that was dated on Friday, May 17.

Indonesian authorities have said they are heightening security ahead of May 22, when the official result of last month's presidential election will be announced.

Indonesian National Police spokesman, Muhammad Iqbal, told reporters in a briefing on Friday that police this month have arrested 29 suspects linked to Jemaah Ansharut Daulah (JAD) - the largest Islamic State-linked group in the country - and confiscated at least five homemade bombs in various locations across Java and North Sulawesi.

Some of the suspects have had paramilitary training and went to Syria as foreign fighters, Iqbal said.

Indonesian police also revealed that some of the suspects have learned how to use Wi-Fi to detonate explosive devices, but it was not immediately clear how advanced their plans were.

Detonating bombs using a Wi-Fi network is considered a new technique, Dedi Prasetyo, another National Police spokesman, told Reuters on Tuesday, and gets around using phone signals, which can be jammed during rallies involving large crowds.

"If there is (cell phone) jammer, then phones are not operable but the Wi-Fi signal will not be disturb, especially when using signal amplifier," Prasetyo said.

The police spokesmen did not answer or return phone calls on Saturday to get more information.

The police arrested EY, a local leader of JAD in Bekasi, near the capital Jakarta, on May 8 in the capital for plotting attacks during next week's announcement of the presidential election. The police identified the suspect only by his initials.

JAD does not have an official spokesman, and it is not known if any of the suspects have retained legal representation.

The arrests are part of the authority's efforts to tighten security ahead of an announcement by the General Election Commission (KPU) on May 22, when nearly 32,000 police and military personnel will be on standby in Jakarta.

The announcement is expected to confirm unofficial counts by private pollsters that showed incumbent President Joko Widodo as having won the race, a result which has been publicly disputed by his contender, ex-general Prabowo Subianto.

Prabowo's supporters have pledged to protest peacefully if the official result confirms Widodo's victory, and large groups of people could be out in the streets after the announcement.
Posted by: trailing wife 2019-05-18
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=541290