JAKARTA, March 9 (Xinhua) -- Governor of Indonesia's Aceh province on Tuesday suspected that terrorist target the country's westernmost province as the biggest terrorism activity base in Southeast Asia, Detikcom online news reported.
The governor said that terrorist have been set the province as operation target for a long time.
"Terrorists want Aceh to be their training location and be their Southeast Asia base,"said Irwandy while visiting the terrorist raid location in Pamulang of Banten province.
In the raid, the police's anti-terror special squad Densus 88 shot dead an allegedly Bali bombing terrorist named Dulmatin and his accomplices consisted of a man and a woman.
Irwandy said that the armed group purposely selected Aceh as their base as the province has a history of separatist group called Aceh Independent Movement (GAM), a separatist movement that was active in promoting independence of the province a year ago.
However, terrorism and GAM are two different things, he said.
"They miscalculated. They thought that as Aceh is lived by pious Muslim, they would be protected there. They come to Aceh and take cover behind GAM. If there is a conflict, they thought that people will blame GAM," he said.
Earlier, Irwandy said that terrorist in Aceh have nothing to do with the GAM.
"In the last a year, GAM cooperates with police to detect terrorist existence," Irwandy was quoted by private news portal Inilah.com. as saying.
According to Irwandy, terrorists are easier to enter Aceh as they are Islam who easily mixed together in the province that is lived by Muslim population.
