RI TO HOLD ANTI-TERROR DRILL ANNUALLY

Jakarta, Dec. 22 (ANTARA) - The Indonesian Police (Polri) and the National Defense Force (TNI) plan to hold a joint anti-terror drill annually to boost their response capabilities against terrorist attacks.

"It (the anti-terror drill) might be held annually," Inspector General Abubakar Nataprawira, a spokesman of the National Police, said here on Sunday.

He said that a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) on the mechanism of TNI's assistance to Polri in handling terror attacks, was needed.

Nataprawira said that Polri needed assistance from TNI in dealing with possible terror attacks which might hit several sites at the same time.

Polri and TNI held a joint anti-terror drill in several cities in Indonesia namely in Jakarta, Bali, Surabaya, Semarang, Yogyakarta and Malacca Straits, from Friday (Dec. 19) to Monday (Dec. 22).

In Jakarta, the anti-terror exercises were carried out at five different sites in Jakarta, namely the Tanjung Priok harbor, the Halim Perdana Kusuma air force base, the Sultan Hotel, the Borobudur Hotel and the Indonesian Stock Exchange (BEI).

National Police Chief General Bambang Hendarso Danuri officially kicked off the joint exercise last Friday in a ceremony attended among others by Coordinating Minister for Political, Legal and Security Affairs Widodo AS, Defense Minister Juwono Sudarsono, TNI Chief General Djoko Santoso, and Home Affairs Minister Mardiyanto.

The exercises involved 6,507 personnel in the fields and 350 others in command posts.