11/05/2021 Indonesia (International Christian Concern) – Indonesian anti-terror police, Special Detachment 88 (Densus 88), confiscated 791 charity boxes during the arrest of three suspected terrorists in Lampung, before they went ahead to freeze the bank accounts of a leading charity accused of funding terrorist activities.
According to UCA News, Aswin Siregar, operations chief of Densus 88, said on Nov.2, “The accounts belonging to Baitul Maal Abdurrahman Bin Auf (BM ABA) were used for the global jihad program of the Jamaah Islamiyah (JI) group.”
The charity, established in 2004 and which has several branches around the country, is known for helping orphanages and Islamic boarding houses. However, police claim this is a cover to entice people into donating to the charity, with some of the money raised going to the terrorist organization.
These funds were used to send JI cadres to conflict areas to carry out a global jihad agenda, such as Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan. The JI militants attended training there to improve their military capabilities or establish communication and relationships with other radical groups.
The freezing of the charity’s bank account followed the arrest of its chairman, who was not named, in Lampung province on Oct. 31. Police later revealed the individual has been JI’s chairman since 2018 and a member of the group since 1997.
JI is one of the active terrorist groups in Indonesia notorious for several deadly attacks, including coordinated bombings of churches in Jakarta and eight other cities which killed 18 people and injured many others.
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