TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The Indonesian government claims there are 689 Indonesian nationals abroad who are considered to be foreign terrorist fighters. Coordinating Minister of Politics, Law, and Security Affairs, Mahfud MD claims this number is based on the records of a number of international agencies, including the United States’ Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

“There are 689 [Indonesian foreign terrorist fighters] according to the CIA data with 228 identified and 401 remains to be identified,” said Mahfud MD at the Bogor Presidential Palace on Tuesday.

Moreover, Mahfud MD said he received information from the Indonesian Conference on Religion and Peace (ICRP) which claims there are allegedly 185 Indonesian foreign terrorists scattered across the globe.

He said the government will look into ICRP’s records and make sure whether their statistics coincide with the one from the CIA.

“We also have data we obtained by ourselves. The number is close to that region,” he said.

Previously reported, the government decided not to repatriate Indonesian foreign terrorist fighters believed to be former members of the defunct terrorist group ISIS. Coordinating Minister Mahfud MD maintains that the government’s decision is strongly based on security concerns for the wellbeing of millions of Indonesians.

“The decision we made in the meeting is that the government must provide its people with the utmost sense of security from terrorist threats and other new viruses that can potentially terrorize Indonesia’s 267 million population,” said Mahfud MD on Tuesday.

EGI ADYATAMA