Mike Pence to tour Asia next month amid security crises

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence speaks about the American Health Care Act during a visit to the Harshaw-Trane Parts and Distribution Center in Louisville, Kentucky, U.S

JAKARTA (Reuters) -U.S. Vice President Mike Pence will visit Japan and Indonesia as part of an Asian tour next month, sources said on Monday, amid concerns the Trump administration is rolling back Barack Obama’s “pivot to Asia.”

U.S. President Donald Trump has already withdrawn from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement, which was seen as an economic pillar of the strategy.

A Trump administration official told Reuters: “The vice president is going to Asia next month I believe.”

The tour will include South Korea and Australia, the Nikkei Asian Review reported, with North Korea’s missile and nuclear programs and South Korea’s political crisis likely topics for discussion.

China has been infuriated by South Korea’s plan to deploy a U.S. missile defense system targeted at the North Korean threat. South Korea is also going through political turmoil after a court removed President Park Geun-hye from office over a graft scandal.

Pence is also expected to visit Tokyo for a U.S.-Japan economic dialogue, according to a source familiar with the matter.

The visit will come as North Korea’s latest missile launches and the assassination in Malaysia of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s estranged half-brother add urgency to the region’s security.

It will also follow this month’s trip by U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to Japan, South Korea, and China.

The TPP had been the main economic pillar of the Obama administration’s pivot to the Asia-Pacific region in the face of a fast-rising China.

Proponents of the pact have expressed concerns that abandoning the project, which took years to negotiate, could strengthen China’s economic hand in the region at the expense of the United States.

Indonesia’s chief security minister said Pence would meet President Joko Widodo to discuss terrorism and other security issues.

Indonesia has the world’s largest Muslim population and has recently grappled with a series of low-level militant attacks inspired by Islamic State.

“We discussed the planned visit of U.S. vice president Mike Pence to Indonesia and the strategic problems that can be on the agenda to discuss with our president,” chief security minister Wiranto told reporters after meeting the U.S. ambassador to Jakarta.

He added that no dates have been finalized.

In Indonesia, Pence is also expected to discuss a brewing contract dispute between the government and American mining group Freeport McMoRan Inc, said two Indonesian government sources.

Freeport has threatened to take the Indonesian government to court over newly revised mining regulations that have prompted a major scale-back in its operations in the eastern province of Papua.

(Reporting by Agustinus Beo Da Costa and Kanupriya Kapoor; Additional reporting by Malcolm Foster in Tokyo and David Brunnstrom in Washington; Writing by Kanupriya Kapoor; Editing by Nick Macfie and Jeffrey Benkoe)

Indonesian police kill bomber, investigate for link to IS sympathizers

REFILE EDITING BYLINE IN IPTCPolice approach a local government office following an explosion in Bandung, West Java, Indonesia February 27, 2017, in this photo taken by Pikiran Rakyat newspaper. Pikiran Rakyat Newspaper/Harry Surjana/via REUTERS.

By Agustinus Beo Da Costa and Gayatri Suroyo

JAKARTA (Reuters) – Indonesian police killed a militant on Monday after he detonated a small bomb in the city of Bandung and authorities said they were investigating whether he had links to a radical network sympathetic to Islamic State.

Indonesia, an officially secular state with the world’s largest Muslim population, faces what many people fear is a growing threat from supporters of Islamic State.

Recent attacks by Islamic State sympathizers have mostly been poorly organized, but authorities believe about 400 Indonesians have left to join the militant group in Syria, and some could pose a more deadly threat if they came home.

The blast in the courtyard of a government office in Bandung, southeast of the capital Jakarta, did not cause any casualties and the bomber was shot by police after he ran into the building.

The militant had arrived at the office on a motorbike and placed his bomb, made with explosives packed into a pressure cooker, in the corner of the courtyard.

The attacker had demanded that an anti-terror police unit, Densus 88, release all detainees, according to provincial police chief Anton Charliyan.

The attacker may have been linked to Jemaah Ansharut Daulah (JAD), an umbrella organization on a U.S. State Department “terrorist” list that is estimated to have drawn hundreds of Islamic State sympathizers in Indonesia.

“There’s a possibility of JAD,” Charliyan said, when asked which group the militant belonged to.

The bomber had been jailed for three years after undertaking militant training in Aceh, a province on the northwest tip of Sumatra island, said national police spokesman Martinus Sitompul.

Indonesia had scored major successes tackling militancy inspired by the al Qaeda attacks on the United States in 2001. But there has been a resurgence of Islamist activity in recent years, some of it linked to the rise of Islamic State.

Authorities foiled at least 15 attacks in 2016 and made more than 150 arrests.

The most serious incident last year was in January when four suicide bombers and gunmen attacked a shopping area in central Jakarta.

Eight people, including all four attackers, were killed in the first attack in Indonesia claimed by Islamic State.

Militant attacks had been relatively rare in Bandung, about three hours away from Jakarta. Provincial police spokesman Yusri Yunus said the situation was “under control” after the bomber was killed.

(Additional reporting by Kanupriya Kapoor; Writing by Eveline Danubrata and Robert Birsel; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)

Asia on Christmas alert as police foil two suspected bomb plots

Indonesian police stand guard with their sniffer dogs providing security ahead of the Christmas and New Years holiday at Gubeng station, Surabaya, East Java, Indonesia December 23, 2016 in this photo taken

y Fransiska Nangoy and Panarat Thepgumpanat

JAKARTA/BANGKOK (Reuters) – Security forces across Asia were on alert on Friday ahead of the Christmas and New Year holidays, as police in Australia and Indonesia said they had foiled bomb plots and Malaysian security forces arrested suspected militants.

Australian police said they had prevented attacks on prominent sites in Melbourne on Christmas Day that authorities described as “an imminent terrorist event” inspired by Islamic State.

The announcement came after an attack in Berlin in which a truck smashed through a Christmas market on Monday, killing 12 people. The suspect was killed in a pre-dawn shoot-out with police in Milan on Friday, Italy’s interior minister said.

In Indonesia, where Islamic State’s first attack in Southeast Asia killed four people in Jakarta in January, at least 14 people were being interrogated over suspected suicide bomb plots targeting the presidential palace in Jakarta and another undisclosed location, police said.

Anti-terrorism police killed three suspects in a gunfight on Wednesday on the outskirts of the capital, Jakarta.

Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim-majority country, would deploy 85,000 police and 15,000 military staff for the Christmas and New Year period, police said.

Moderate Indonesian Muslim groups were helping authorities secure Christmas celebrations amid heightened religious tension after the Christian governor of Jakarta, Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, went on trial on a charge of blasphemy against Islam, which he denies.

Hardline group Islamic Defenders Front swept into shopping centers in the city of Surabaya, in East Java, last week to make sure Muslim staff were not forced by employers to wear Santa hats or other Christmas gear.

In West Java, a group stopped a Christmas event as it was being held in a public building rather than in a church.

In Jakarta, about 300 volunteers from Nahdlatul Ulama, Indonesia’s biggest moderate Muslim group, will join police in overseeing security.

“The focus is against terrorism, especially in Jakarta and Bali, because these are the traditional targets,” Indonesia police chief Tito Karnavian told reporters.

The largely Hindu island of Bali, famed for its temples and beaches, suffered Indonesia’s most serious militant attack, in 2002, when 202 people were killed, most of them foreigners, by bombs at a bar.

WARNINGS, PATROLS

In the Pakistani city of Lahore, where 72 people were killed in an Easter Day bombing targeting Christians this year, police said 2,000 Muslim volunteers had been trained to help with security.

“A three-layer security will be arranged around every church in Lahore,” said Haider Ashraf, the city’s deputy inspector general of police.

He said and CCTV cameras were monitoring churches and other gathering places for Christians, who make up about 1 percent of Muslim-majority Pakistan’s 190 million people.

Police in Muslim-majority Malaysia, where Islamic State claimed responsibility for a grenade attack on a bar on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur in June, said this week they had arrested seven people for suspected links to the militant group.

Police will monitor transport hubs, entertainment centers and tourist spots.

“We try not to have too much physical presence in public and focus more on prevention,” deputy home minister Nur Jazlan Mohamed said. “People should feel free to enjoy their holidays.”

The U.S. embassy in India warned this week of an increased threat to places frequented by foreigners.

In mostly Muslim Bangladesh, where a militant group killed 22 people, most of them foreigners, at a Dhaka cafe in July, police would be patrolling near churches, an officer said.

Mostly Buddhist Thailand plans to have more than 100,000 police on patrol until mid-January, police said, adding it was an increase from last year, without giving details.

Thai deputy national police spokesman Kissana Phathancharoen said no intelligence pointed to a possible attack but “we will not let our guard down”.

Multi-ethnic Singapore, a major commercial, banking and travel hub that is home to many Western expatriates, will deploy police at tourist and shopping areas. Police said bags may be checked.

(Additional reporting by Mubasher Bukhari in LAHORE, Pakistan; Rozanna Latiff in KUALA LUMPUR, Aradhana Aravindan in SINGAPORE, Serajul Quadir in DHAKA and Tommy Wilkes in NEW DELHI; Writing by Marius Zaharia; Editing by Nick Macfie)

Indonesian quake over 100 killed, 700 injured, numbers keep rising

Rescue workers try to remove a victim from a collapsed building following an earthquake in Lueng Putu, Pidie Jaya in the northern province of Aceh, Indonesia December 7, 2016 in this photo taken by Antara Foto. Antara

By Biyan Syahputri and Darren Whiteside

PIDIE JAYA, Indonesia (Reuters) – Indonesian medical teams struggled on Thursday to treat scores of people injured in a 6.5 magnitude earthquake a day after more than 100 people were killed in the worst disaster to hit the province since the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.

The quake toppled hundreds of buildings and left thousands of people homeless. The province of Aceh, on the northern tip of Sumatra island, has declared a two-week state of emergency.

“All the victims were crushed in collapsed buildings,”said Sutopo Nugroho, a spokesman for the national disaster management agency.

Rescuers in Aceh’s Pidie Jaya regency focused their search on a market complex, which suffered more damage than other parts of the town of 140,000.

The quake flattened most of the Pasar Meureudu market building, which housed dozens of shops, and rescue teams used excavators and their bare hands to pull out 23 bodies.

Victims included a bridegroom and guests due to attend a wedding party when half the complex collapsed.

“It is so sad for our family, we had prepared everything,” said Rajiati, the mother of the bride. Both she and her daughter survived.

Nugroho said many buildings in the area withstood the quake but those that collapsed were probably not built in accordance with regulations.

Experts also blamed poor construction.

“Initial information shows that single storey houses without reinforced internal brick or masonry walls have been damaged severely or collapsed,” said Behzad Fatahi, a geological expert at the University of Technology in Sydney.

Indonesia’s disaster agency said 102 people had been killed, with more than 700 injured.

The quake was the biggest disaster to hit the province since a Dec. 26, 2004, quake and tsunami, which killed more than 120,000 people in Aceh. In all, the 2004 tsunami killed 226,000 people along Indian Ocean shorelines.

The 2004 disaster centered on its western coast near provincial capital Banda Aceh. Wednesday’s quake hit the east coast, about 170 km (105 miles) from Banda Aceh.

Television images showed some patients being treated in tents in car parks because hospitals were full. But rescue officials said aid and heavy machinery was arriving.

The Indonesian Red Cross (PMI) handed out food, water and blankets, and helped provide shelter.

“Many patients are being treated in disaster tents and we’re starting to get doctors coming in from other areas so that is a help,” Arifin Hadi, PMI’s head of disaster management, said by telephone.

Indonesia sits on the so-called Pacific ring of fire and more than half of its 250 million people live in quake-prone areas, according to the disaster agency.

(Additional reporting by Kanupriya Kapoor and Fergus Jensen in JAKARTA; Editing by Paul Tait, Robert Birsel)

Indonesian quake toll passes 100 as rescuers struggle

Rescue workers searching for victims after quake

By Biyan Syahputri and Darren Whiteside

PIDIE JAYA, Indonesia (Reuters) – Indonesian medical teams struggled on Thursday to treat scores of people injured in a 6.5 magnitude earthquake a day after more than 100 people were killed in the worst disaster to hit the province since the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.

The quake toppled hundreds of buildings and left thousands of people homeless. The province of Aceh, on the northern tip of Sumatra island, has declared a two-week state of emergency.

“All the victims were crushed in collapsed buildings,”said Sutopo Nugroho, a spokesman for the national disaster management agency.

Rescuers in Aceh’s Pidie Jaya regency focused their search on a market complex, which suffered more damage than other parts of the town of 140,000.

The quake flattened most of the Pasar Meureudu market building, which housed dozens of shops, and rescue teams used excavators and their bare hands to pull out 23 bodies.

Victims included a bridegroom and guests due to attend a wedding party when half the complex collapsed.

“It is so sad for our family, we had prepared everything,” said Rajiati, the mother of the bride. Both she and her daughter survived.

Nugroho said many buildings in the area withstood the quake but those that collapsed were probably not built in accordance with regulations.

Experts also blamed poor construction.

“Initial information shows that single storey houses without reinforced internal brick or masonry walls have been damaged severely or collapsed,” said Behzad Fatahi, a geological expert at the University of Technology in Sydney.

Indonesia’s disaster agency said 102 people had been killed, with more than 700 injured.

The quake was the biggest disaster to hit the province since a Dec. 26, 2004, quake and tsunami, which killed more than 120,000 people in Aceh. In all, the 2004 tsunami killed 226,000 people along Indian Ocean shorelines.

The 2004 disaster centered on its western coast near provincial capital Banda Aceh. Wednesday’s quake hit the east coast, about 170 km (105 miles) from Banda Aceh.

Television images showed some patients being treated in tents in car parks because hospitals were full. But rescue officials said aid and heavy machinery was arriving.

The Indonesian Red Cross (PMI) handed out food, water and blankets, and helped provide shelter.

“Many patients are being treated in disaster tents and we’re starting to get doctors coming in from other areas so that is a help,” Arifin Hadi, PMI’s head of disaster management, said by telephone.

Indonesia sits on the so-called Pacific ring of fire and more than half of its 250 million people live in quake-prone areas, according to the disaster agency.

(Additional reporting by Kanupriya Kapoor and Fergus Jensen in JAKARTA; Editing by Paul Tait, Robert Birsel)

Nearly 100 killed, hundreds hurt as quake strikes Indonesia’s Aceh

Indonesia Earthquake December 2016

JAKARTA Dec 7 (Reuters) – The death toll from a magnitude 6.5 earthquake that struck Indonesia’s Aceh province on Wednesday has risen to 93, the provincial government said.

(Reporting by Kanupriya Kapoor; Editing by Robert Birsel)

Indonesia doctors attending to the wounded

A doctor examines a patient in a hospital following an earthquake in Pidie Jaya, Aceh, Indonesia in this still frame taken from video December 7, 2016. METRO TV/Via REUTERS TV

Indonesians surveying the damage after the earthquake

People survey the damage after dozens of buildings collapsed following a 6.4 magnitude earthquake in Ule Glee, Pidie Jaya in the northern province of Aceh, Indonesia December 7, 2016. REUTERS/Nunu Husien

Thousands of Indonesians expected to rally against rising intolerance

Members of hardline Muslim groups hold a big national flag as they attend a protest against Jakarta's incumbent governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, an ethnic Chinese Christian running in the upcoming election, in Jakarta, Indonesia

By Eveline Danubrata

JAKARTA (Reuters) – Thousands of Indonesians are expected to rally on Saturday against what they see as growing racial and religious intolerance in the world’s largest Muslim-majority country.

Religious leaders, human right groups and other organizations will join the parade in central Jakarta, spokeswoman Umi Azalea said by telephone.

The movement was not political but aimed at “celebrating Indonesia’s diversity”, Azalea said.

“Indonesia has so many religions, cultures and ethnicities. Yet now we are seeing some groups that are forcing their own will, and that is very worrying.”

Indonesian police said on Wednesday they would investigate a complaint by Muslim groups that the Christian governor of Jakarta, Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, had insulted Islam.

The decision has stoked concerns about rising hardline Islamic sentiment in the country of 250 million people and is also seen by some analysts as a blow to democracy.

More than 100,000 Muslims protested against Purnama earlier this month. Police fired tear gas and water cannon to quell the protest.

There are also signs of rising religious tension elsewhere in Indonesia. Last Sunday, police arrested a suspected militant who threw an explosive device at a church in the eastern island of Borneo.

(Reporting by Eveline Danubrata; Editing by Nick Macfie)

Flash floods in Indonesia kill 20; rescuers hunt for missing

A view of the damage caused after the Cimanuk River overflowed from heavy rains in Garut, West Java, Indonesia

GARUT, Indonesia (Reuters) – Indonesian search and rescue teams worked on Wednesday to find victims of flash floods that killed 20 people and damaged hundreds of homes, authorities said.

The floods hit the Garut area, about 200 km (125 miles) southeast of the capital, Jakarta, on Tuesday after torrential rain.

“We’ve reported that we found 20 bodies and we’ve identified 15 of them,” said Endah Trisnawati, a member of a police disaster victims identification unit.

It was not clear how many people were missing but some officials in the area said it could be up to 15. Some media reported 20 people were unaccounted for.

Authorities said search and rescue operations would go on.

Military personnel and volunteers helped evacuate about 1,000 residents of the area.

Debris floated in gradually receding floodwater in inundated villages and there appeared to be widespread damage to vehicles and buildings.

Flash floods and landslides are common in Indonesia, often caused by heavy rain at this time of year.

(Addtional reporting by Kanupriya Kapoor in Jakarta; Editing by Robert Birsel)

Bullets trump rehab as Asia quickens failing war on drugs

Men inject heroin into their arms along a street in Man Sam, northern Shan state, Myanmar

By Andrew R.C. Marshall and Antoni Slodkowski

BANGKOK/YANGON (Reuters) – The Philippines has launched a bloody “war on drugs” that has killed at least 2,400 people in just two months, while neighboring Indonesia has declared a “narcotics emergency” and resumed executing drug convicts after a long hiatus.

In Thailand and Myanmar, petty drug users are being sentenced to long jail terms in prisons already bursting at the seams.

The soaring popularity of methamphetamine – a cheap and highly addictive drug also known as meth – is driving countries across Asia to adopt hardline anti-narcotics policies. Experts say they are likely to only make things worse.

Geoff Monaghan has seen it all before. He investigated narco-trafficking gangs during his 30-year career as a detective with London’s Metropolitan Police, then witnessed the impact of draconian anti-drug policies as an HIV/AIDS expert in Russia.

“We have plenty of data but often we forget the history,” said Monaghan. “That’s the problem.”

He believes President Rodrigo Duterte’s anti-drugs campaign in the Philippines will fuel more violence and entrench rather than uproot trafficking networks. “I’m very fearful about the situation,” he said.

Reflecting the regional explosion in use, the amount of meth seized in East and Southeast Asia almost quadrupled from about 11 tons in 2009 to 42 tons in 2013, said the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

The only region seizing more meth was North America, where the booming trade inspired the popular television series “Breaking Bad”.

Meth was the “primary drug of concern” in nine Asian countries, the UNODC said, including Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, Japan and South Korea.

PLAYING CATCH-UP

A rising chorus of experts blame this surge in production and use of meth in Asia on ineffective and even counterproductive government responses.

They say national drug-control policies are skewed toward harsh measures that criminalize users but have failed to staunch the deluge of drugs or catch the kingpins behind it.

They also want a greater emphasis on reducing demand through more and better quality drug rehabilitation.

“There is so much scaremongering and hysteria surrounding the issue of drugs,” says Gloria Lai of the International Drug Policy Consortium (IDPC), a global network of 154 non-governmental groups. “That’s a disincentive for challenging old ways of thinking.”

Meth is a transnational business, worth around $15 billion in mainland Southeast Asia alone in 2013, the UNODC says.

Much of the production takes place in laboratories in lawless western Myanmar. Ingredients such as pseudoephedrine and caffeine are smuggled across porous borders from India, China and Vietnam.

Laos and Thailand are major trafficking routes, with the finished product traveling by road or along the Mekong River for distribution throughout Southeast Asia and China.

Meth is sold in cheap pills called “ya ba”, a Thai name meaning “crazy medicine”, or in a more potent, crystalline form known as “crystal meth”, “ice” or “shabu”.

Contraband is effectively hidden amid rising volumes of regional trade, leaving law enforcement to play catch-up, said Jeremy Douglas, the UNODC’s Asia Pacific chief.

“We need to start thinking about big-time regional engagement, up to the highest level. It’s impossible to deal with the problem on a country-by-country basis,” he said.

“I can’t recall the last time a major trafficking kingpin was caught.”

SOCIAL COST

The meth explosion carries huge social consequences: overburdened health services, overcrowded prisons, families and communities torn apart.

Small-time users and dealers bear the brunt of unsparing law enforcement that is popular in crime-weary communities. In mid-July, as drug war killings escalated in the Philippines, one survey put President Duterte’s approval rating at 91 percent.

Thailand launched an equally popular “war on drugs” in 2003 that rights activists said killed about 2,800 people in three months, a death toll later halved by a government-appointed inquiry. Figures show it had no lasting impact on meth supply or demand in Thailand.

“The world has lost the war on drugs, not only Thailand,” the country’s justice minister Paiboon Koomchaya told Reuters in July.

Paiboon hinted at a radical shift in policy, saying he wanted to reclassify meth to reduce sentences for possessing and dealing the drug.

For now though, Thailand continues to jail thousands of petty drug users, with about 70 percent of its 300,000 or so prisoners jailed on drugs offences, according to government data.

TOUGH TO TREAT

Meth addiction is tough to treat, ideally requiring costly and time-consuming counseling. Long-term use can cause changes in brain structure and function.

In March, U.S. President Barack Obama said drug dependency should be seen as “a public health problem and not a criminal problem”, part of a bid to roll back a “war on drugs” begun in the 1970s and now widely seen as a failure.

Policy in Asia is largely moving in the opposite direction, with drug rehabilitation underfunded and inadequate.

Less than 1 percent of dependent drug users in Indonesia got treatment in 2014, said the UNODC. Lacking alternatives, desperate Indonesians resort to herbal baths, Islamic prayer and other remedies of unproven efficacy.

“Rehab” in many countries often means detention at a state facility. In Thailand, thousands of users are held at army camps for four months. Relapse rates at drug detention centers range from 60-90 percent, says the World Health Organisation.

“Often, the government response causes more harm to an individual than the drug itself,” said the IDPC’s Lai.

Evidence shows that the most effective treatment is voluntary and community-based. A 2015 study in Malaysia found that half the people at compulsory centers relapsed within 32 days of release, compared with 429 days for those who had volunteered for treatment.

Tackling demand is complicated by meth’s broad appeal across different ages, professions and social classes.

In Myanmar, manual laborers claim that smoking ya ba boosts their stamina, while students say it boosts their grades.

A Yangon student who asked to be identified by the nickname “Nick” told Reuters at a grim state-run rehab clinic that he smoked ya ba to help him concentrate on his studies.

When asked how many of his fellow students also used it, Nick replied: “Almost all of them.”

(Additional reporting by Amy Sawitta Lefevre and Patpicha Tanakasempipat in Bangkok, Kanupriya Kapoor in Jakarta and Wa Lone in Yangon; Editing by Alex Richardson)

Indonesian priest attack inspired by murder of French Catholic cleric

Police are seen outside Saint Joseph's Catholic Church after a suspected terror attack by a knife-wielding assailant on a priest during Sunday service in Medan, North Sumatra, Indonesia August 28, 2016 in this photo taken by Antara Foto. Picture taken Augu

By Tom Heneghan

JAKARTA (Reuters) – An Indonesian teenager who attacked a Catholic priest in his church was inspired by the murder of a French priest in July and guided by a radical compatriot in the Islamic State stronghold of Raqqa, Jakarta’s national police chief said on Wednesday.

But the youth’s bomb-making skills, acquired over the internet, were amateurish and his suicide bomb belt failed to explode, General Tito Karnavian told foreign journalists. Parishioners overpowered the 17-year-old when he assaulted the priest with a knife on Sunday, and he is now in police custody.

Karnavian said the unsuccessful attack showed the phenomenon of a “lone wolf” radicalized over the internet was spreading in the world’s largest Muslim-majority nation, projecting the violence of the Middle Eastern militant group Islamic State (IS) as far afield as Indonesia, where Muslims and Christians have mostly lived in harmony.

The attacker took his inspiration from reports of the murder of Father Jacques Hamel, 85, who died after two militants slit his throat during Mass in a suburb of Rouen in northern France in July. The murder was the latest in a grim series of radical Islamist killings that have rocked France in recent years.

“He was imitating … the priest attack because of the internet,” Karnavian said.

“Based on communications, we found he also had a connection with an Indonesian in Syria,” he added, explaining the compatriot was a radical based in Raqqa. “It is an indication that the lone wolf (phenomenon) is growing in Indonesia.”

There were no serious casualties in Sunday’s attack in the northern city of Medan, though the priest and the attacker – named as Ivan Armadi – suffered minor injuries, according to police.

NO LINKS TO LOCAL RADICALS

Hamel’s murder was the first Islamist attack on a church in western Europe and came just 12 days after a Tunisian who had pledged allegiance to IS drove his truck through a crowd of Bastille Day revelers in the Riviera city of Nice, killing 85.

Indonesian Chief Security Minister Wiranto said on Monday that Armadi had a note in his backpack saying “I love al-Baghdadi”, referring to the head of the Islamic State group.

“From the cellphone that was seized by security forces, this youth was obsessed with Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi,” said Wiranto, who goes by one name.

Karnavian said police had found no indication Armadi had any contacts to Islamist networks in Indonesia, so his attack was considered a case of self-radicalization and not sectarian violence rooted in tensions between religious communities in traditionally tolerant Indonesia.

Indonesia has the world’s largest Muslim population and the vast majority practice a moderate form of Islam. But a small minority of militant Islamists has been growing in recent years, inspired in part by Islamist militant groups like al Qaeda and IS.

Religious Affairs Minister Lukman Hakim Saifuddin was more cautious than Karnavian when asked about the Medan attack, saying “conflicts related to religion are not based on religion”.

He said religions preached peace, so violent radicals claiming to act in the name of Islam were really exploiting the faith to promote their own political goals based mostly on social or economic injustice they experienced in Indonesia.

The government was drawing up a draft law to limit hate speech on social media that would limit extreme statements by all religious communities, he said.

“This is the challenge that must be faced.”

HUNDREDS OF ISLAMIC STATE SYMPATHIZERS

Saifuddin and Karnavian spoke in briefings to foreign journalists on a study tour sponsored by the Hawaii-based East-West Center, a non-profit organization financed in part by the U.S. government.

Karnavian said that Armadi had said two men paid him to stage the attack at St Joseph’s Church in Medan, but police doubted his story and thought it was meant to lessen his blame in the operation.

“We strongly believe this was not sectarianism, because he was a lone wolf,” he said, adding that many Muslims in the Medan area had condemned the attack.

Indonesian counter-terrorism officials have said there are hundreds of IS sympathizers in the country.

Indonesia suffered its first IS-linked attack in January, when four people died in a gun and bomb assault in the capital Jakarta.

(Additional reporting by Agustinus Beo Da Costa; Editing by Kanupriya Kapoor/Mark Heinrich)