Jakarta – Indonesia's top security minister has ordered sweeping changes and granted wider powers to its intelligence services following the deadly Australian embassy blast in Jakarta.
With a presidential election on Monday and a nationwide manhunt under way for the two terror masterminds behind the bombing, the minister for security and politics Hari Sabarno announced the shakeup today, saying it would ensure more coordination among rival agencies and departments.
Intelligence officers will have the power to arrest terror suspects immediately instead of having to call for assistance from police or the military.
"Intelligence officers outside the police force have until now not had the power under the law to catch anyone," Sabarno said. "They can only follow, observe and inform."
In future, already powerful intelligence czar AM Hendropriyono, who heads the national intelligence service known as BIN, would make changes "to empower all intelligence officers in this country", Sabarno said.
Indonesia's terrorist hunt has been hampered in the past by the sheer number of intelligence services in the country.
As well as police, BIN and the three branches of the military, both the security ministry and even the foreign affairs department have their own intelligence wings.
"It's true that each force and police actually have their own special anti-terror task," Subarno said. "The problem is how to unite this force to anticipate terrorist actions, to prevent or handle them."
The decision to hand Hendropriyono more power is a surprise. Many analysts in Jakarta had earlier predicted that he might be forced to quit in the wake of Indonesia's third terror attack in only two years.
Sabarno said Indonesia was well prepared to deal with traditional terrorist scenarios like hostage situations and hijackings. But he said the recent wave of suicide bombings was a new threat that authorities were fast trying to counter.
Last week's bombing killed at least nine people, all of them Indonesian, and wounded more than 160 others.
National police chief general Da'i Bachtiar said the suicide bombers had picked the weakest point of the Australian Embassy defences, turning their white truck packed with explosives "a little bit" to the side near the front gate for maximum effect.
Indonesian police were today still piecing together parts of the vehicle. They were also using DNA samples to try and identify whether one or two suicide bombers had been in the vehicle cab. A severed head probably belonging to one of the bombers was found late yesterday on the fifth floor of an office building beside the embassy. More embassy staff returned to work at the mission this morning after work crews began repairing blast-resistant security fences.
A nationwide manhunt has been launched for Azahari Husin and Noordin Mohammed Top, the two Malaysians believed to have masterminded both the embassy attack and the bombing last year of the JW Marriott Hotel in Jakarta, which killed 12 people.