Woman in Jakarta bomb plot was a maid in Singapore
Screen grab from a TVOne interview with Dian Yuli Novi. - The Straits Times/TVONE
JAKARTA: A 27-year-old Indonesian woman arrested for allegedly planning to mount a suicide-bomb attack on the presidential palace in Jakarta had worked in Singapore as a maid.
In an interview with local TVOne news channel, Dian Yulia Novi said she was first exposed to radical Islam through Facebook, while working as a maid.
"On Facebook, I opened profiles of jihadists, who had inspired me," she told TVOne senior reporter Ecep S. Yasa while in police custody.
"I did not join any groups, just looked through, but became more curious," she said, adding that she collected articles and audio clips of religious teachings on the Internet.
The woman, from Cirebon in West Java province, said she had worked in Singapore for 1 ½ years for a household with three children aged five, nine and 11. She also said she was "active" on Facebook and spoke English there.
Dian did not say when she was employed, but Indonesian media said she was working in Singapore in 2014.
She told the news channel that she had also worked in Taiwan as a maid for three years. While working as a maid, she said she wore a headscarf but not a veil, and had never taken a day off.
Dian is one of two women from a group of seven who were nabbed at the weekend over a plot to strike the office complex of President Joko Widodo with a 3kg high- grade rice-cooker bomb.
They were being prepared to be suicide bombers by a new terrorist cell based in Solo that was set up by Bahrun Naim, an Indonesian militant who is in the Middle East fighting alongside Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) militants.
During the TV interview on Tuesday, she was asked if she did not fear God's wrath for wanting to hurt people on a massive scale. She said she did it "for the sake of Allah".
Dian said she was introduced to Nur Solihin, who was also arrested in the raid, by somebody on social media, and she chatted with him on Telegram.
They got married three months ago. She knew he was married and has children.
The couple never exchanged photographs or met each other. In fact, she did not even turn up for her wedding - she sent a representative for the marriage solemnisation instead, she said.
IS uses social media to proselytise and encourage sympathisers to stage attacks at home.
Terror analysts say these women were "victims", dragged into terrorism through marriage.
The Islamic authorities in countries such as Egypt and Singapore, for instance, have begun to counter false teachings and use social media platforms to explain and promote proper teachings online.
Professor Salim Said, a military expert at the Indonesia Defence University, told The Straits Times that female suicide bombers are a "new phenomenon in South-east Asia".
"From the interview, she didn't sound intelligent, but naive. Without critical thinking skills, she was easily brainwashed and used by terrorists to suit their purposes." - The Straits Times/Asia News Network
