Indonesia has deployed hundreds of snipers and crack police to guard 17 key United States facilities in the capital in view of rising anti-US sentiment, a police spokesman said Saturday.
"We're securing US companies, banks, and residential areas housing US citizens as well as the embassy and ambassador's residence, 17 places in all," Jakarta police spokesman Anton Bachrul Alam told AFP.
The security beef up follows US envoy Robert Gelbard's request Friday for extra protection following threats from extremist groups to expel US citizens, and demonstrations protesting against possible US attacks on Afghanistan.
Alam said 400 police, including 200 snipers, are now guarding the 17 spots 24 hours day.
Extremist Muslim groups here are angry at the prospect of US attacks against alleged terrorists and those harboring them in Afghanistan, in reprisal for the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington on September 11.
The Front for the Defenders of Islam (or FPI in its Indonesian abbreviation), has threatened to drive Americans out and raid US facilities and has even raised the specter of Americans being kidnapped.
"FPI leaders are all intellectuals but I'm afraid FPI members at the grassroots level are not. What if they meet an American on the street and then beat and abduct him?," FPI chairman Habib Muhammad Rizieq Syihab was quoted as saying in the Jakarta Post.
Police spokesmen have said security forces would take "stern action" if any Muslim groups target US interests or citizens.
The US embassy has warned its citizens repeatedly in recent months of credible threats from extremist groups to attack US facilities or citizens in Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation.
Washington has advised Americans against travelling to Indonesia -- JAKARTA (AFP)
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
