Indonesia ISIS Regional Chief Arrested

Cilacap, Central Java, Aug 13 (Antara) - A joint team of TNI (military) and police personnel has arrested seven people suspected to be the supporters of the "the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS)" movement, including their chief, Chep Hermawan. According to information received by Antara on Tuesday, Chep Hermawan was arrested after he declared himself as the ISIS chief for Indonesian region several days ago along with six others at a gas filling station in Cilopadang, Cilacap, Central Java. According to an eyewitness Wahyono, a silver Toyota Land Cruiser car bearing the registration number D-6-CC with seven people on board halted to fill gas at the station, but thereafter, the car was stopped before a furniture shop outside the gas station. Several TNI and police members were seen approaching them who then searched the car and discovered ISIS flags, he claimed. He stated that all of them were then taken to the police resort station in Cilacap. Besides Chep Hermawan (59), the others who were taken into police custody were Dani Rahdani (30), Ludy Burdah Muslim (30), Aeb Lukman Nulhakim (30), Syaiful Bahri (39), Didin Samsudin (44), and Ade Saefullah. The seven were arrested after the police received a tip-off that several alleged supporters of ISIS had come to visit prisoners in the Nusakambangan Penitentiary in Cilacap, Central Java. On the basis of that information, the police then traced them in Majenang while on their way home in West Java. The police have confiscated ISIS attributes such as flags, T-shirts, pins, and three pieces of face covers from them. Chief of the Cilacap resort police Adjunct Senior Commissioner Andry Triaspoetra reported that the police were still intensively investigating them. "They are still being questioned. We have confiscated the attributes," he noted in the company of Chief of the Cilacap military region Lieutenant Colonel Gusti Agung Adi Putra Winata. Chep Hermawan had earlier expressed readiness to tender an explanation with regard to his declaration as the ISIS chief for Indonesian region. Hermawan also disclosed that he had actually given an explanation to the Ministry of Religious Affairs some time ago after attending an election dispute session at the Constitutional Court. "After he gave a speech, a religious affairs ministry staff member picked him up and confronted him with the deputy minister of religious affairs. At the meeting, he explained about the ISIS declaration at Hotel Indonesia roundabout on March 16, 2014," he stated in Cianjur, West Java, on Sunday (August 10). Hermawan affirmed that he had never been summoned by the police with regard to it. Hermawan explained that ISIS in Indonesia has actually been set up to safeguard national security, so that Indonesian citizens who went for jihad will not commit criminal actions when they return home. In view of that, he deplored clerics in Indonesia especially the Indonesia Council of Ulemas (MUI) who have expressed their opposition to the ISIS movement in Indonesia. "Our communication with the MUI has hurt (our sentiments) because they have accused us of committing violence against those who are opposed to us," he pointed out. Chep Hermawan, who is known as the general chairman of the Islam Reform Movement (Garis), has admitted that his nomination as the Indonesian ISIS regional chief was made based on the recommendation of terror convict Abu Bakar Ba`asyir who is now serving jail term in the Nusakambangan Prison.