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Nurdin Hasan
The home of two American teachers was the scene of the latest attack on foreigners working in Aceh. (Photo: Hotli SImanjuntak, EPA)
Indonesian Police Say Aceh Attackers Want Foreigners Out

Banda Aceh. A string of violent attacks against foreigners in Aceh are aimed at terrorizing outsiders into leaving the region, an Aceh Police spokesman said on Monday.

“All three attacks against foreigners this month are linked. They were conducted by trained professionals who had planned the attacks well. The targets are foreigners conducting humanitarian and peaceful missions in Aceh. They want to terrorize foreigners working to heal Aceh,” police spokesman Farid Ahmad Saleh told the Jakarta Globe hours after unidentified gunmen fired six shots at the home of two American teachers.

Monday’s dawn attack comes less than a week after an attack on the home of the European Union’s local representative in Aceh. This was preceded by the shooting of the representative of the German Red Cross earlier this month.

“They [terrorists] do not want Aceh to be safe. We will be stepping up police patrols to safeguard foreigners working in peaceful missions across Aceh,” Farid said. “They waited for us to let our guard down, and then they attacked.”

No one was injured in Monday’s attack on the home of Michelle Ahmad and Sarah Willis in a housing complex for lecturers located on the outskirts of Banda Aceh, police and witnesses said.

“At that time Sarah and I had just woken up. We immediately hit the floor as soon as we heard the gunshots,” Ahmad told reporters, adding that they never saw the shooter, who fled on a motorcycle after firing the shots at around 5:45 a.m.

Ahmad said that the two women rang a faculty member before calling the police.

A source at the university said both teachers are in their 20s and teach English literature at Syiah Kuala University.

Ahmad has been teaching there for almost two years while Willis has only been in Aceh for three months.

"The bullets never entered the home and were fired from a 20-meter range,” said one of the police investigators.

Sr. Comr. Bambang Soetjahjo, Aceh Police’s director of intelligence and security, who was at the crime scene, said the exact motive was still unknown.

“Hopefully we can solve this. We don’t know about the identity of the perpetrator or the motive,” Bambang said.

Last Monday, the house of the European Union representative for Aceh, John Penny, was fired on by two men on a motorcycle, breaking the front window of the residence. No one was injured in the nighttime attack.

On Nov. 5, the local representative of the German branch of the Red Cross, Erhard Baeur, 50, was shot in the abdomen and arm by two men on a motorcycle. The victim was evacuated to Singapore for intensive medical treatment.

Following that attack, the International Red Cross briefly suspended its Aceh operations.

Bambang said the Aceh Police had formed a special unit to hunt down the assailants.

Several nongovernmental organizations in Aceh have expressed their concern over the attacks, which they believe are already disrupting the shaky peace in the province.

For years Aceh was home to a bloody guerrilla insurgency. Peace was restored in 2005 after internationally brokered peace negotiations between the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) and the central government led to greater autonomy for the province.

Activists here say they hope that international organizations that are working toward strengthening peace in Aceh will continue to do so, despite the recent attacks. They have urged President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to take greater steps to ensure that both foreigners and the general population are more secure from persistent low-level terror attacks.