A motorist rides past Merdeka Palace in Jakarta, Indonesia, Tuesday, Oct. 25, 2022. Indonesian police arrested a veiled woman who pointed a gun at a guard Tuesday morning to try to force her way into the presidential palace in the country's capital. (AP Photo/Dita Alangkara)
DAJAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — Indonesian police arrested a woman who pointed a gun Tuesday at a guard at the presidential palace in Jakarta in an attempt to force her way inside.
A member of the presidential guards saw the unidentified woman standing near a guard post outside the palace. Suspicious of her behavior, he confronted the woman, who then pointed a gun at him, said Wahju Hidajat Soedjatmiko, the chief of the presidential guards.
He said the guard snatched the handgun from the woman. A video showed her trying to run away before two guards stopped her. The gun was given to police for investigation.
It appeared that no shots were fired and no one was injured in the incident.
Television reports showed police detaining a woman wearing a long black robe and a blue veil in front of a gate at Merdeka Palace in downtown Jakarta as other officers spoke with her.
Police seized a black bag from her containing only Islam’s holy book, the Quran, and an empty pink wallet with no identification, said Jakarta Police spokesperson Endra Zulpan.
Zulpan said police were questioning the woman at police headquarters to determine her motive and whether she was connected to a militant group.
Indonesia has been battling militants since the Jemaah Islamiyah group carried out in 2002 that killed 202 people, mostly foreign tourists. Attacks aimed at foreigners have been largely replaced in recent years by smaller, less deadly strikes targeting the government, police and anti-terrorism forces, and people who militants consider to be infidels.
A woman in a black veil was arrested and sentenced to 7 1/2 years in prison for outside the presidential palace in Jakarta during the changing of the guard in 2016.
In March 2021, another veiled woman entered Indonesia’s ºÃÉ«tv Police Headquarters in Jakarta and before being fatally shot by other officers in the world’s most populous Muslim nation.
It came a few days after a married couple with suspected militant links detonated pressure cooker bombs outside the Sacred Heart of Jesus Cathedral in Makassar, the capital of South Sulawesi island, wounding at least 20 people.
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