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INDONESIA-SECURITY-CHRISTMAS
Indonesia boosts security for Christmas, New Year
JAKARTA, Dec 22, 2017 (BSS/AFP) – Indonesia will deploy some 180,000
security personnel ahead of the Christmas and New Year holidays, authorities
said Friday, following the arrests of more than a dozen suspected militants
in the world’s biggest Muslim-majority country.
Thirteen suspected militants were arrested in separate, pre-emptive raids
across the Southeast Asian nation earlier this month.
Many of the suspects were proven to have links to the Islamic State group
or had fought in Syria.
Police spokesman Martinus Sitompul said no specific terror threats had been
detected since the arrests, but security would be boosted to safeguard
churches and public spaces between December 22 to January 2.
“We will keep monitoring and stay alert,” he said.
About 70,000 people from other government agencies and civil society groups
— including the country’s largest Islamic youth organisation — would assist
security personnel, Sitompul said.
A sprawling archipelago of more than 250 million people, Indonesia has long
struggled with Islamic militancy and has suffered a number of deadly bomb
attacks, including a Christmas Eve attack in 2000 that left 18 dead and
scores injured.
In 2002, a bomb in a Bali nightclub killed over 200 people while, more
recently, a suicide bombing and gun attack claimed by IS in the capital
Jakarta killed eight people in January 2016.
BSS/AFP/MR/ 1215 hrs