Pat Dollard | Young Americans

The men have been flown into Jakarta for questioning

JAKARTA, July 3, 2008 (Reuters) — A group of 10 suspected Muslim militants detained in raids on Sumatra island by Indonesia’s anti-terrorism unit was plotting to attack Western targets, a police source said on Thursday.

A large cache of bombs was found during the raids in Palembang, 425 km (260 miles) from the capital Jakarta, and other areas in South Sumatra, police said. The raids followed the capture of a suspected militant after a tip-off by authorities in Singapore, national police spokesman Abubakar Nataprawira said.

“They were preparing for foreign targets,” said the police source, who was involved in the raids.

The source, who asked not to be identified, said police believed the targets included the capital Jakarta.

Heavily armed members of the anti-terrorism unit, Detachment 88, escorted blindfolded and shackled suspects on a transport plane to Jakarta for interrogation on Thursday.

“Nine suspects have been flown to Jakarta and are currently in the Mobile Brigade headquarters,” Nataprawira told a news conference, where he only listed the initials of the suspects. He said one suspect was still being questioned in Sumatra.

He said that last Saturday an English teacher had been captured after an alert from Singapore that he was involved in the regional militant Islamic network Jemaah Islamiah (JI).

He said the man was a bomb-making expert linked him to Mas Selamat bin Kastari, a senior JI member who escaped from a Singapore prison in February.

Singapore’s Home Affairs Ministry confirmed that a Singaporean had been arrested, but said it was not Kastari.

Kompas newspaper reported the Singaporean went by a series of aliases, including Abu Hazam, and had trained in Afghanistan, where he was believed to have met Osama bin Laden.

“In the raid, Detachment 88 also confiscated five tupperware bombs, 14 pipe bombs and potassium chlorate,” Nataprawira said, declining to comment on whether they might have been targeting foreigners.

But he said the group was suspected of being involved in plans to bomb a cafe in Bukittinggi, a popular tourist resort in West Sumatra, as well as an assassination attempt on a priest in Bandung in West Java in 2005.

He also linked the group — which he said included a student, government worker and the head of an Islamic boarding school — to Noordin Mohamad Top, who is wanted over some of the deadliest attacks in Indonesia by JI.

“BIG FISHES”

“I think they’ve got a couple of big fishes,” said Sidney Jones, a Jakarta-based analyst with the International Crisis Group.

The 20 bombs found appeared to be more sophisticated than some used by militants previously in Indonesia, with 16 ready to use and some packed with ball bearings, a police source said.

Kompas newspaper, which reported that the bombs were found in the ceiling of a house in Palembang, also said police believed the group had considered attacking a location in Sumatra popular with holidaymakers last July before dropping the plan.

More explosives had also been found in Sekayu, about 105 km (65 miles) from Palembang, a police source said.

One of the suspects was also believed to be a close friend of Azahari Husin, a Malaysian bombmaker for JI who is thought to have played key roles in attacks in Indonesia and died in a police raid in East Java in 2005, the source added.

JI, which wants to create an Islamic caliphate in Southeast Asia, carried out a string of deadly attacks in recent years in Indonesia, including the 2002 nightclub bombings on the island of Bali, which killed more than 200 people, mostly foreign tourists.

There have also been a number of deadly bombings against Western targets in the capital Jakarta, although there has been no major attack in Indonesia for more than two years and Washington last month lifted a travel warning for Indonesia.

Tristram Perry, a U.S. embassy spokesman in Jakarta, said there was no plan to reimpose the travel warning, which he said reflected Jakarta’s improved response on security.

A series of raids, often involving Detachment 88, a police unit funded and trained by the United States and Australia, have led to the arrest of hundreds of militant suspects.

In addition, some experts say mainstream members of JI felt the violence was hurting their cause and had led to the deaths of Muslims, resulting in splinter groups forming around figures such as Noordin Top still backing more violent methods.