An Al-Qaeda connected militant who, in 2015, prepared an unrealised plot to attack the Singapore Stock Exchange building, is being arrested and investigated by the Indonesian police over his current and past participation and function in Indonesia’s terrorist networks.
The 51-year-old Indonesian national, Yudi Lukito Kurniawan, was captured in Gorontalo, in the northern part of Sulawesi island on Aug 21.
“We are developing the case to see whether he is a key and crucial element in terror networks,”
a source who is close to the investigation said.
Yudi was with Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula – the Yemeni chapter of Al-Qaeda – when the plan to target the SGX Centre in Singapore’s Shenton Way was hatched, according to the press statement sent to ST by Detachment 88, Indonesia’s national police counter-terrorism unit. “Yudi tried to enter Singapore in 2015 by sea but was rejected by the Singapore immigration and was deported to Batam,” the statement also stated.
Yudi had remarried and carried around frequently to evade detection, said the source. He was known to have expended time in Surabaya and Pasuruan in East Java, Gorontalo in Sulawesi, and Batam, which is a quick ferry ride from Singapore. He also assumed other aliases, with initials IS, AT, MAL and AH, according to the statement. The source expressed the Singapore attack plan in 2015 was meant to be an indirect aggression against the United States. “They believe their distant enemy is the US and Singapore is a US ally that is (geographically) closest to Indonesia,” he described.
Yudi was an associate of Southeast Asia’s terror network Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) before he moved affiliation in 2012 to Jamaah Ansharut Tauhid (JAT), which was established by terrorist ideologue Abu Bakar Bashir, 86. He then proceeded to Jamaah Ansharusy Syariah (JAS), another JI splinter group, according to Detachment 88’s statement.
While he was with JAT, Yudi was deployed to Yemen as a component of the global jihad movement supported by Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), the press statement noted.
JI was responsible for Indonesia’s biggest terrorist attack, the 2002 Bali bombing that killed more than 200, many of whom were alien tourists. JI was heavily supported by the global terror network al-Qaeda, and on June 30, its leaders in Indonesia said that they had dissolved the organisation.
“The (latest) arrest is a warning to other JI members who choose not to disband themselves but instead join other terrorist groups. We will get them,”
stated the source.
Among the proof the Indonesian police are examining is a passport bearing Yudi’s name that has a visa stamp published by the Yemen government, and a document saying Singapore’s 2015 refusal of entry to Yudi, noting that he was ineligible for entry under current immigration policies.
