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Anti-terror police seize militants in Indonesia
Anti-terror police arrested 10 suspected Muslim militants and seized a large cache of high-powered bombs, foiling a major attack targeting Westerners in the Indonesian capital, police and media reports said on Thursday.
- AP
- Published: 13:44 July 3, 2008
Jakarta: Anti-terror police arrested 10 suspected Muslim militants and seized a large cache of high-powered bombs, foiling a major attack targeting Westerners in the Indonesian capital, police and media reports said on Thursday.
Among those detained was a Singaporean who met several times with Osama bin Laden, a senior police officer told The Associated Press.
Some of the suspects told police during interrogations that they had initially planned to attack foreign tourists on Sumatra Island, but shifted their target to Jakarta after realising too many Indonesian lives could have been lost, TVOne quoted anti-terror police as saying.
At least 22 bombs were seized during raids Wednesday in Palembang, a coastal city on Sumatra, some packed with bullets to maximize the impact of the blast, a police general said.
Many were ready to explode, Kompas newspaper reported on Thursday, adding that dozens of pounds of explosive powder, grenades and several types of electric detonators also were recovered.
The arrests began on Saturday when police captured a Singaporean terror suspect who then tipped police off to the whereabouts of two other suspects on Monday. Six others were netted on Wednesday and a seventh before dawn on Thursday.
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