Anti-social media: Online chats foil Singapore rocket attack plan
Source: Reuters
BATAM, Indonesia - It was social media chatter that gave him away. Changing his profile picture on the Line messaging app to a banner pledging "Indonesian support and solidarity for ISIS" (the Islamic State, or IS) probably didn't help.
Had it not been for all that, Gigih Rahmat Dewa's plot to launch a rocket attack on the city-state of Singapore from a nearby Indonesian island might have been murderously successful.
Gigih, 31, and five accomplices were arrested on Batam island on Friday after an investigation that showed how much Indonesia's Islamist militants now rely on social media, including with a Syria-based Islamic State jihadi who allegedly directed them to stage attacks.
It also underlined how militants in the world's most populous Muslim nation, once tight-knit under the Jemaah Islamiah group and internally focused, are splintering into smaller gangs loosely linked to Islamic State with increasingly regional ambitions.
Read more: http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/asia/1055541/anti-social-media-online-chats-foil-singapore-rocket-attack-plan
