By Prashanth Parameswaran
Counterterrorism chief sounds alarm on foreign fighter threat.
Indonesia’s counterterrorism chief has warned that the Islamic State (IS) is collaborating with people-smuggling networks to bring foreign fighters to Indonesia from Malaysia.
Saud Usman Nasution, the head of Indonesia’s counterterrorism agency, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation that the IS fighters arrive from Malaysia in Sumatra, after which they are taken to Poso in central Sulawesi, believed to be a training ground for IS fighters.
“We see that some foreign terrorist fighters from overseas come to Indonesia. First they leave Malaysia and head for Pekanbaru (Sumatra) to Puncak (west Java) — it’s all facilitated by asylum seeker networks, then from Puncak they would leave to Makassar and Poso, with facilitation from ISIS network,” he said.
“So we need to stay vigilant, more so because there is information that in Malaysia, there are thousands, a lot of foreign terrorist fighters there who are about to be deployed — we don’t know where to — under the network,” he added.
Read the full story at The Diplomat