page_title: Abdul Haris Nasution
section_title: Kidnapping attempt
hierarchical_section_title: Abdul Haris Nasution / G30S and Transition to New Order / Kidnapping attempt
caption_attribution_description: Nasution, having his injured foot treated, in discussion with Ibnu Subroto on the night of 1 October 1965 as Kostrad HQ, Jakarta
context_page_description: General of the Army Abdul Haris Nasution was an Indonesian army general. Born into a Batak Muslim family in the North Sumateran village of Hutapungkut, in what was then the Dutch East Indies, he studied teaching and enrolled at a military academy in Bandung. After Sukarno declared Indonesia's independence on 17 August 1945, Nasution joined the fledgling Indonesian armed forces which was fighting the Indonesian National Revolution against the Dutch. The following year he was appointed commander of the Siliwangi Division, the guerrilla unit opreating in West Java. After the country's internationally recognised independence in 1949, Nasution was appointed Chief of Staff of the army. He remained in post being suspended in 1952 following a failed show of force against the president. He was reappointed Chief of Staff in 1955. In 1965 there was a coup attempt by the 30 September Movement. Nasution's house was attacked, and his daughter killed, but he managed to escape scaling a wall and hiding in the Iraqi ambassador's residence.
context_section_description: On the morning of 1 October 1965, troops calling themselves the 30 September Movement (G30S) attempted to kidnap seven anti-communist Army officers including Nasution. Lieutenant Arief was the leader of the squad assigned to capture Nasution, and his team in four trucks and two military cars travelled down a deserted Jalan Teuku Umar at 4:00 am. Nasution's home was at No. 40, a modest single storey home. The guard in the sentry box outside the house saw the vehicles coming, but upon seeing the men were soldiers he was not suspicious and did not call his superior, Sergeant Iskaq, who was in charge of the army detail guarding the house. The sergeant was in a guardroom in the front room along with half a dozen soldiers some of whom were asleep. A guard was asleep in the front garden and another was on duty at the rear of the house. In a separate cottage, two of Nasutions aides were asleep, a young army lieutenant Pierre Tendean, and assistant police commissioner Hamdan Mansjur.
  Before the alarm could be raised, Arief's squad had jumped the fence and overpowered the sleepy guards in the sentry box and guard room. Others entered from around the side of the house and covered it from the rear. About fifteen soldiers broke into the house. Both Nasution and his wife were bothered by mosquitoes and were awake. Neither heard the guards being overpowered but Mrs Nasution heard a door being forced. She got out of bed to check and on opening the bedroom door, she saw a Cakrabirawa (presidential bodyguard) soldier with a gun ready to shoot. She slammed the door shut and yelled a warning to her husband. Nasution wanted to take a look himself and when he opened the door, the soldier shot at him. He flung himself to the floor and his wife slammed and locked the door. The men on the other side began to smash the door down and fired a volley of shots into the bedroom. Mrs. Nasution pushed her husband out through another door and down a corridor to a side entrance to the house. He dashed across his garden to the wall separating his garden and that of neighbouring Iraqi ambassador. He was spotted by soldiers who fired off a volley of shots but missed. Scaling the wall, Nasution, broke his ankle as he fell into the ambassador's garden to hide. He was not pursued.
  The entire Nasution household was awakened and frightened by the shooting. Nasution's mother and sister, Mardiah, also lived in the house and ran to his bedroom. Mardiah grabbed Nasution's five-year-old daughter, Irma, from her bed, cradling the child protectively in her arms, and tried to run to safety. As she ran past, a corporal from the palace guard fired a round of shots at her through a door. Mardiah was hit in the hand and Irma received three bullets in her spine. She died five days later in hospital. Nasution's eldest daughter, 13-year-old Janti, and her nurse Alfiah had run to the cottage housing Nasution's aides and hid under a bed.
  Tendean loaded his weapon and ran from the house, but was caught within a few steps. In the darkness, he was mistaken for Nasution and taken away at gunpoint. After pushing her husband out of the house, Mrs Nasution ran inside and picked up her wounded daughter. As she phoned for a doctor, Cakrabirawa troops demanded she tell them her husband's whereabouts. Reportedly she had a brief and angry exchange with Arief telling him that Nasution had been out of town for a few days. A whistle blow outside and the men in the house left taking Tendean with them. The whole affair had taken nine minutes. Mrs Nasution took her wounded daughter to the Central military hospital and guards sounded the alarm. The Jakarta garrison commander, Major General Umar Wirahadikusumah, rushed to the Nasution home.
  A guard outside the house of Johannes Leimena, a neighbour of Nasution's and one of Indonesia's three deputy premiers, heard the commotion and walked down to the Nasution house. In the confusion the guard was shot and killed. This led to stories of Lemeina being on the plotter's list and of an attack on Lemeina's house. However, the killing of the guard was unpla
caption: Nasution having his foot treated while discussing the situation at Kostrad HQ on the night of 1 October 1965
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