Six men associated with an Islamic school founded by a radical cleric plotted to set off bombs and shoot police to wage “holy war” in an Indonesian town, one of the suspects said in an interrogation video released by police on Thursday.
Two suspected militants and a member of an elite anti-terrorism squad were killed last Friday when police raided the group in Central Java. Bayu Setiono, 22, was arrested during the raid, another man was arrested on Wednesday and two suspects are at large.
The group is accused of killing a police officer last week and attacking two police posts in mid-August as part of the plot in the town of Solo.
In the 10-minute video released at police headquarters, Setiono described their group as an “underground group without amir (leader), without baiat (pledging of allegiance).
“We planned to kill policemen and create a situation like Ambon and Poso, for the sake of upholding Islamic sharia and the establishment of a caliphate in Indonesia,” Setiono said, referring to the Muslim-Christian conflict that killed thousands from 1999 into the 2000s.
“Our targets, since 2007 until now, are infidels and policemen,” he said.
One plan for him, Farhan Mujahidin and Mukhsin Sanny Permadi to finance their plot by robbing a gold shop failed due to the presence of a police officer. “We cancelled the plan, and Farhan was angry and said such police has to be killed,” Setiono said. The two other men were killed in last week’s raid.