By IINA,
Jakarta : Indonesian security forces stormed airports, five-star hotels, passenger ships and the Stock Exchange building yesterday in a massive anti-terrorism drill ordered in the wake of last month’s terror rampage in India’s Mumbai. Nearly 7,000 soldiers and police officers took part, dropping from helicopters onto the roofs of buildings and staging mock battles with masked hostage takers in six locations, including the capital Jakarta, and on the resort island of Bali, the Associated Press reported. Indonesia has been hit by a string of deadly suicide bombings targeting Westerners since the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States, but experts say the arrest of hundreds of suspects has sharply diminished the terror threat in the world’s most populous Muslim nation.
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said, however, last month’s terror attack in Mumbai highlighted the need to remain alert and called on security forces to ready themselves. Indonesian television broadcast live footage of black-clad counterterrorism forces dropping by helicopter onto the glitzy Borobudur Hotel in Jakarta before blasting through windows to release screaming hostages, leaving a trail of shattered glass. In another scenario at a local airport, mock-terrorists seized an airplane carrying the president, killing the pilot and dumping the body onto the tarmac. After a 90-minute standoff, security forces overpowered the ransom-demanding militants.
Similar drills were held on Bali, which has suffered suicide bombings in 2002 and 2005 that killed more than 220 people, many of them foreign tourists. Security forces also stormed a ship in the Strait of Malacca, among the world’s busiest shipping lanes, in a bid to free hundreds of passengers seized in another mock-raid. “The important thing we have to underline is the coordination and cooperation between the police and armed forces,” said Widodo Adisucipto, coordinating minister for security. “We will evaluate to see what has to be improved more.”
Members and associates of regional militant group Jemaah Islamiyah have been blamed for all of the recent suicide bombings in Indonesia, as well as a number of failed terrorism plots in Southeast Asia. The group had ties with al-Qaida and other foreign extremists before 2002, but most experts believe the links have since been broken. The last major attack in Indonesia occurred three years ago.