The bombing at the police post was the act of a group, as was the case with the 2017 bomb attack on the Cicendo Village Office in Bandung city, deputy for enforcement and capability development at the BNPT, Ibnu Suhendra, said.
"Unlike the perpetrator who carried out the attack at the Criminal Investigation Agency (National Police Headquarters in 2021), whom the special detachment identified as a lone wolf," he informed in Bandung city, West Java, on Thursday.
In 2017, the alleged perpetrator of the Astanaanyar bombing, Agus Sujatno, was involved as a pot bomb maker in Cicendo village. He was arrested and jailed for four years at Nusakambangan Prison and released in 2021.
Suhendra said he suspected that the attack at Astanaanyar was carried out by Sujatno with the help of an organized network since the attack was similar to one carried out by another terrorist group at the police station earlier.
"Motive-wise, this group wanted to attack the police, this perpetrator targeted our police officers who were having a morning assembly, with the aim that our members would fall victims," he added.
National Police chief, General Listyo Sigit Prabowo, had earlier informed that Sujatno aka Agus Muslim was still on the deradicalization program list.
"The person in question had been detained at Nusakambangan Prison. So that means, in quotation marks, the group is (still being monitored). The deradicalization process requires different techniques and tactics," Prabowo said at a press conference in Bandung city on Wednesday.
Sujatno was difficult to talk to and had a tendency to avoid interactions, he added.
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Translator: Bagus A R, Mecca Yumna
Editor: Suharto
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