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| Ichwan Nurul Salam and Ahmad Sukri |
Thestar.com.my - The two suspects who killed three policemen at a bus terminal in east Jakarta on Wednesday night in a suicide bombing have ties to militants in Poso, Central Sulawesi, a police source said.
Both suspects were killed in the twin blasts, the source confirmed.
He identified the first suspect as Solihin, an administrative staff at the Darul Anshor, an Islamic boarding school in Poso, and the other as Ichwan Nurul Salam, a 34-year-old man from Bandung, West Java.
The police have also determined that the bombs were low-grade explosives that contained aluminium scraps.
While the police believe the suspects had ties to extremists in Central Sulawesi, counter-terrorism investigators are trying to establish if they were also linked to the remnants of the East Indonesia Mujahideen (MIT) militant group which operates out of Poso.
The MIT is behind several terror attacks in Indonesia since 2012, including skirmishes with security forces during which police officers and people in Central Sulawesi were killed.
MIT leader Santoso, also known as Abu Wardah, and another MIT combatant, were killed in the fire-fight last year.
Santoso and his men from MIT had pledged allegiance to Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).
Three Indonesian policemen were killed and five other officers were injured after the two suspects allegedly set off what was believed to be a pressure cooker bomb near a bus terminal in Kampung Melayu, in East Jakarta, at about 9pm local time on Wednesday.
It appeared that the bombing followed a similar pattern of attack by domestic militants targeting local police officers in Indonesia.
The policemen had assembled to escort a scheduled a parade organised by a community group in the neighbourhood when the explosion was heard, said the police.
On July 5 last year, a suicide bomber on a motorcycle blew himself up after he was stopped by officers from entering the local police headquarters in Solo city.
The bomber had used low-grade explosives in the homemade bomb, which like most improvised explosive devices (IEDs), contained ball-bearings and screws, and was trying to attack the policemen as they reported for their shift.
Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim-majority country, has long struggled with militancy, and hundreds of radicals from the South-East Asian state have flocked to fight with the Islamic State, sparking fears that weakened extremist outfits could get a new lease of life.
He identified the first suspect as Solihin, an administrative staff at the Darul Anshor, an Islamic boarding school in Poso, and the other as Ichwan Nurul Salam, a 34-year-old man from Bandung, West Java.
The police have also determined that the bombs were low-grade explosives that contained aluminium scraps.
The MIT is behind several terror attacks in Indonesia since 2012, including skirmishes with security forces during which police officers and people in Central Sulawesi were killed.
MIT leader Santoso, also known as Abu Wardah, and another MIT combatant, were killed in the fire-fight last year.
Santoso and his men from MIT had pledged allegiance to Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).
Three Indonesian policemen were killed and five other officers were injured after the two suspects allegedly set off what was believed to be a pressure cooker bomb near a bus terminal in Kampung Melayu, in East Jakarta, at about 9pm local time on Wednesday.
It appeared that the bombing followed a similar pattern of attack by domestic militants targeting local police officers in Indonesia.
The policemen had assembled to escort a scheduled a parade organised by a community group in the neighbourhood when the explosion was heard, said the police.
On July 5 last year, a suicide bomber on a motorcycle blew himself up after he was stopped by officers from entering the local police headquarters in Solo city.
The bomber had used low-grade explosives in the homemade bomb, which like most improvised explosive devices (IEDs), contained ball-bearings and screws, and was trying to attack the policemen as they reported for their shift.
Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim-majority country, has long struggled with militancy, and hundreds of radicals from the South-East Asian state have flocked to fight with the Islamic State, sparking fears that weakened extremist outfits could get a new lease of life.
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