Security forces besieging a radical Islamic boarding school in eastern Indonesia have opened fire on student protesters, wounding three, National Police confirmed on Wednesday.Read the full story here.
National Police have also confirmed that they have dispatched additional forces, most likely members of the elite Densus 88 antiterror police, to the Umar bin Khatab Islamic Boarding School in Bima, Sumbawa, nearly 48 hours after a homemade bomb detonated prematurely and killed a suspected terrorist.
It is understood that four platoons of local Mobile Brigade (Brimob) and antiriot police, as well as additional forces from the Indonesian Military (TNI), have surrounded the school, which is understood to house 45 students, as well as teachers and an unknown number of supporters.
Students armed with sticks and machetes have been preventing investigators from reaching the scene of the explosion in a tense stand-off.
National Police spokesman Insp. Gen. Anton Bachrul Alam told the Jakarta Globe that police at the scene had opened fire on a group of students who had been hurling stones at police.
“The students were throwing stones at the police chief and his personal aide. They suffered minor injuries,” he said. He said police had retaliated, opening fire and wounding three people.
The report is at odds with local police officials, who have been claiming that they are adopting a nonviolent approach.
“We are still using persuasive ways to avoid casualties,” NTB Police spokesman Adj. Sr. Comr. Sukarman Husein told the Jakarta Globe in Mataram on Wednesday.National Police Operational Assistant Insp. Gen. Badrodin Haiti told the Globe that “there was not a single piece of land in Indonesia that was untouchable by our officers” whenever the law had been violated.
He said police would try their best to achieve a negotiated settlement and to avoid major bloodshed.The school is associated with Jemaah Ansharut Tauhid (JAT), a hard-line group founded by convicted terrorist Abu Bakar Bashir.