Indonesian police say church bomber was wanted fugitive

Sep 27, 2011, 5:54 GMT

Jakarta - The man who blew himself up outside a church in central Java was a fugitive wanted for an attack on a police mosque in April, police said Tuesday.

At least 27 people were injured Sunday when the attacker detonated explosives packed with shrapnel as worshippers were coming out of the Bethel Bible Church in the city of Solo.

The bomber was identified as Ahmad Yosepa Hayat, one of five people wanted in connection with April's suicide attack on the police mosque in the West Java city of Cirebon, national police spokesman Anton Bachrul Alam said.

'His motive was jihad, but it was a wrong kind of jihad,' Alam said.

The Brussels-based International Crisis Group said in a recent report that violent extremism in Indonesia was increasingly taking the form of small groups acting independently of large organizations.

These appear to have shifted their focus from foreigners to local targets including the police, the think tank said.

April's mosque attack killed another bomber and injured 30 people, mostly police officers who were at Friday prayers.

The police spokesman said Hayat was a member of Jamaah Ansyarut Tauhid, a legal organization founded by radical cleric Abu Bakar Ba'asyir.

Ba'asyir was sentenced to 15 years in jail in June for funding a militant group planning attacks against Westerners and political leaders.

Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim-majority country, has been hit by a string of bombings blamed on Islamist militants since 2000, notably the 2002 Bali attacks that killed 202 people.