Indonesian police seize ‘Mother of Satan’ explosives from West Java mountain hideout after terrorist convict’s confession
- Imam Mulyana, a former member of an Islamic State affiliate in Indonesia, revealed that 35kg of TATP had been buried in West Java
- Police said the discovery, which came days before the 19th anniversary of the Bali bombings, showed the country’s deradicalisation efforts were working
Indonesian police have seized 35kg of the high explosive triacetone triperoxide (TATP) – also known as “The Mother of Satan” by terrorist groups – from a mountain hideout in West Java following a tip-off from a convicted militant who had been in custody for four years.
Officers from Indonesia’s elite counterterrorism squad Detachment 88 (Densus 88) said they were “astounded” by the discovery of explosives that could have been used to carry out terror attacks on a “disastrous scale”.
It also marked a major success, they said, for the country’s deradicalisation programme, which aims to change the mindset of hardened militants who view the police and government as the main obstacles to them establishing an Islamic caliphate in Indonesia, using violence if necessary.
Imam Mulyana, a former member of Indonesian Islamic State affiliate Jemaah Ansharut Daulah (JAD) who was arrested in 2017, contacted Densus 88 to reveal the location of the explosives following years of weekly deradicalisation meetings.
Aswin Siregar, head of operations at Densus 88, told This Week In Asia “Imam’s confession was a result of the successful deradicalisation programme he was undergoing to the point where it raised an awareness within him to the danger of terrorism”.
