Bali braces for ISIS threat

The island, a magnet for foreign tourists, is on alert after a spokesman for the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) issued a worldwide threat against Westerners.

By Alisha Nurhayati for Khabar Southeast Asia in Bali, Indonesia

October 07, 2014

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Bali is taking measures to shield against potential attacks on foreign tourists by supporters of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria ( ISIS ).

Bali Governor Made Mangku Pastika (centre, left) and then-Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard visit the Bali bombing memorial on October 13th, 2012, one day after the 10th anniversary of the attacks that killed 202 people. Pastika says the island is on alert for threats from supporters of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). [Sonny Tumbelaka/AFP]

"I have instructed all of community watch groups to be aware of ISIS, and anticipate the spread of their ideology and actions in Bali. We are strongly concerned about our security. Bali relies on the tourism sector," Governor Made Mangku Pastika told Khabar Southeast Asia.

Babinsa , village surveillance officers, and Babinkamtibmas, an agency which posts police officers in villages as security advisers, will assist with security efforts, he added.

"We have 716 villages in Bali," Pastika said. "So we will maximise the work of Babinsa and Babinkamtibmas in anticipating ISIS."

Barbaric threats

The Balinese governor was reacting to barbaric threats contained in a September 22nd speech by ISIS spokesman Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, who said the jihadist group planned to mount attacks against citizens of European countries, the United States, Australia, Canada and other nations joined to defeat it.

According to an excerpt of his speech quoted by Jakarta-based Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict (IPAC), al-Adnani said: "If you do not have bombs or bullets, and a kafir (infidel) from America or France or one of their allies comes out, hit him in the head with a rock, carve him up with a knife, hit him with your car, throw him off a high building or poison him."

Al-Adnani's threat has left Indonesians living in tourist hotspots like Bali fretting that their areas could be targeted.

"We are still traumatised with the incident in Legian in 2002. It was heart-breaking," Bali resident Ni Nyoman Fatmawati told Khabar. "It seems now ISIS is going to target more [individuals and locations]. Our family was just rebuilding our business after it was all gone in the bombing. Balinese are against ISIS.

We want to continue to live in peace," she said.

Al Chaidar , a terrorism expert at Malikussaleh University in Aceh, commented about the growing number of Indonesians supporting ISIS and its violent cause.

"They are not necessarily participants, but these supporters will possibly back jihad in Indonesia," he warned.

Aditya Surya in Jakarta contributed to this report.

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Reader Comments

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- kathy dy
  
  October 27, 2014 @ 03:10:55AM
- Beware the dangers of the spider's web.

- Charles
  
  October 16, 2014 @ 08:10:29PM
- Sweep out ISIS, because they are the world's garbage.
- aransa
  
  October 22, 2014 @ 03:10:55AM
- News about ISIS are like fabricated storms, there is a director so that the attention of Muslims and the global community are diverted from the Israeli Jews which have recently leveled the innocent residents in Gaza.

- M Farid Mustafa
  
  October 16, 2014 @ 05:10:41AM
- There is only one way to deal with ISIS, improve the prosperity of poor Muslims and do not continue to abandon them, then they will automatically consider ISIS their enemies.

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