Indonesia jails mastermind behind plot to bomb Myanmar Embassy

JAKARTA — An Indonesian court yesterday sentenced an Islamist militant to seven-and-a-half years in prison for masterminding a plot to bomb Myanmar’s Embassy in the country’s capital, while the police elsewhere arrested two extremists they said were poised to launch an attack in a red light district and at police posts.

The developments highlight the resilience of extremists in Indonesia despite a sustained crackdown by the authorities over the last decade that has severely weakened them. Militants with links to Al Qaeda were responsible for a series of bloody and spectacular attacks against Western civilian targets in the 2000s, including the 2002 nightclub bombings in Bali.

Sigit Indrajit, 23, was the third person to be found guilty in the foiled attack last year on the Myanmar Embassy, which he and other defendants have said was intended as an act of retaliation against Buddhist-majority Myanmar for attacks there on ethnic Rohingya Muslims.

The attackers had prepared rudimentary explosives and practised very poor operational security, for example using Facebook to communicate and post threats against the Embassy. Nevertheless, the plot has stoked fears in Indonesia and elsewhere in South-east Asia that violence against Rohingya in Myanmar is energising extremists, who highlight the sufferings of the Rohingya extensively through online media.

Indrajit was captured in May, days after the police arrested two other militants on their way to the embassy in downtown Jakarta and seized five homemade bombs from a backpack they were carrying. Other explosive materials were found later at their rented house in southern Jakarta. Two others were arrested months later.

In Surabaya, the country’s second-largest city, two other extremists were arrested by the police on Monday.

The police said officers seized bombs and bomb-making equipment from a rented house where the men were staying. They said the men admitted to planning an attack on a police post in the city yesterday, while other possible targets included a large prostitution complex in the city. AP