Chinese Embassy gives info about terror arrests

The Chinese Embassy in Indonesia on Thursday gave further information about earlier reports which said that four terror suspects allegedly from the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region were arrested in a restive region in Indonesia.

A Tuesday report by The Jakarta Post quoted Saud Usman Nasution, head of the National Counterterrorism Agency, as saying that Indonesian police in Central Sulawesi province arrested four of nine Uyghur terrorism suspects who had sought refuge in the town of Poso, while three fled into nearby jungle and two others managed to escape to Malaysia.

The embassy told the Global Times Thursday that the four suspects were arrested at some point last year, but the embassy could not confirm their nationalities. It is still gathering information about the situation, the embassy said.

In an e-mail reply to the Global Times on Thursday, the Indonesian Embassy in Beijing said that there is no documentation of their nationality other than the Turkish passport they were carrying when detained.

Indonesian anti-terror agencies are working hard to establish the identities and nationalities of the suspects, it added.

The nine suspects are believed to have been part of the Uyghur separatist group that launched a deadly terrorist attack on a train station in Kunming, Yunnan province in southwestern China, on March 1, 2014, that killed dozens, according to the report.

According to a report by news portal guancha.com, Central Sulawesi is a hub for terrorists in Indonesia. The Indonesian police found documents about the Islamic State in the suspects' car, and therefore believe they have connections with the militant group.

Indonesian police said that the four detainees initially said they had come from Xinjiang, but later claimed they came from Turkey.

"They are believed to have fled to Poso by taking the land route through Myanmar, southern Thailand and Malaysia. From Malaysia, they entered Indonesia through Medan (capital of North Sumatra province) with Turkish passports and they posed as asylum seekers when they were in Medan," Saud was quoted as saying by the Antara news agency.

Meng Jianzhu, head of the Commission for Political and Legal Affairs of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, met Saud on January 13 and both sides pledged to increase communication and cooperation on counterterrorism, the Xinhua News Agency reported.

As both countries had been victims of terrorism, Saud said, Indonesia understands and supports China's effort to combat terrorist forces and is willing to increase communication and cooperation with China.