Story highlights
The suspects planned to rob jewelry stores to help fund their activities, police say
Counter-terrorism police conducted raids on two hotels in Bali
A number of high-profile terrorist plots have targeted Indonesia in the past decade
Five suspected terrorists were killed Sunday in a shootout with police on the Indonesian resort island of Bali, a spokesman for Indonesia’s National Police said Monday.
The suspects were planning to rob several jewelry stores to help fund their alleged terror plots, and planned on making at least two thefts Sunday night, said Senior Commander Boy Rafli Amar of the National Police.
Indonesia’s counter-terrorism police, who had been following the suspects for a month, conducted two raids on hotels in the Denpasar area of Bali on Sunday night. Gunfire was exchanged before the suspected terrorists were killed, Amar said. Two guns and ammunition were recovered from the two sites, he said.
The suspects were believed to be part of a group behind the armed heist of a bank in Medan, North Sumatra, in 2010, Amar said. That group was later determined to be part of a terror cell that helped fund and set up a military-style training camp in the province of Aceh, also in North Sumatra.
A number of high-profile terrorist plots have targeted Indonesia in the past decade, notably the bombings on Bali in 2002 that killed 202 people, including foreign tourists.
The Indonesian authorities have tried and convicted hundreds of terrorists since the 2002 Bali bombings. The arrests of senior militants with combat experience have weakened the terrorist network in the country and its capability to launch major attacks.
According to recent reports by the International Crisis Group, the terrorist threat in the country remains but has shifted to attacks on Indonesian authorities, with smaller groups or radicalized individuals targeting the police.