05/14/2020 Indonesia (International Christian Concern) – Having lost influence in the past few months, Islamic State (ISIS) is urging its sympathizers to take advantage of the Coronavirus pandemic’s disruption and launch renewed attacks around the world. In Indonesia, recent raids conducted by counter-terrorism police shows a startling amount of ammunition being seized.

According to Asia Times, terrorism experts say the 2,300 rounds of ammunition, all of it for assault rifles and other service weapons used by the police and military, is the most Indonesian militants are known to have had in their possession in almost two decades.

Three suspects allegedly belonging to the ISIS-linked Jamaah Ansharut Daulah (JAD) were arrested on April 26 by the Detachment 88 counterterrorism unit in the Surabaya suburb of Sidoarjo, along with large number of weapons.

A day later, three more militants were captured by police and reportedly kept the possession of an additional 2,000 rounds of ammunition near the Banten province capital of Serang, west of Jakarta.

In another incident that took place in southern Central Kalimantan, a new sanctuary for fugitive militants, local police arrested a man who was tracked by street cameras after planting a home-made bomb in a mosque.

While in general terrorism activities have been low since the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak, some terrorist groups did seize this opportunity to secretly recruit and train their militants, such as JAD.

JAD was behind the 2016 Samarinda church bombing, the 2018 Surabaya bombings against three churches, and the 2019 Jolo Cathedral bombings in the Philippines. It is the most known militant group in Indonesia and has followers across the archipelago.

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