Indonesian police have arrested seven people allegedly connected to an Islamic terror plot to attack Pope Francis during his visit to the country.
The coordinated arrests took place in Jakarta, the outlying cities of Bogor and Bekasi, the West Sumatra province, and the Bangka Belitung Islands province, according to a statement Indonesia’s national counterterrorism squad, Detachment-88, released Friday.
The statement included the initials of those detained — HFP, LB, DF, FA, HS, ER, and RS — and specified that the majority of the arrests occurred on September 2 and 3.
Detachment-88 spokesman Colonel Aswin Siregar said it is not yet clear if the seven suspects know each other or are members of the same terror cell.
“We have a mechanism to monitor and filter. We had tip-off information from members of the public,” Aswin said.
Aswin told reporters that legal action has been taken against the seven individuals “who made threats in the form of propaganda or terror threats via social media in response to the pope’s arrival.”
“There was also a threat to set fire to the locations,” he added.
One source told local media that the would-be assailants were upset about Pope Francis’s visit to Jakarta’s Istiqlal mosque as well as the government’s request that television stations refrain from the usual broadcasting of azan (Islamic call to prayer) while the pope’s visit was being broadcast live.
The source also said that some of those arrested had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State and that searches conducted in the house of one of the detainees yielded bows and arrows, a drone, and ISIS leaflets.
“One of the arrested is a militant who belongs to the same terror group that attacked Wiranto,” the source said, referring to Indonesia’s former chief security minister, whom two Islamist terrorists stabbed in 2019.
Pope Francis famously denied the existence of Islamic terrorism in 2017. “Christian terrorism does not exist, Jewish terrorism does not exist, and Muslim terrorism does not exist. They do not exist,” he said.
The pope departed from Indonesia Friday to continue his 12-day trip in Southeast Asia, landing in Papua New Guinea. Later, he will travel to East Timor and Singapore.