Jakarta - Indonesian police have captured several terrorist suspects, including a Singaporean, and seized dozens of assembled bombs and a cache of explosives, officials and local media reports said Thursday. The nine terrorist suspects, believed to be members of Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), a regional terrorist network linked to al-Qaeda, were arrested during various raids since June 28 at several locations in South Sumatra province. The latest arrest took place on Tuesday in the provincial capital of Palembang, national police spokesman Abubakar Nataprawira told reporters on late Wednesday.
A Singaporean, identified as Alim, alias Omar or Taslim, was among the detained men, who was arrested last Saturday in South Sumatra district of Sekayu.
According to a report by the Kompas.com news portal the suspects were flown out of Palembang to Jakarta on Thursday morning for further interrogation.
In addition to 20 assembled bombs, 16 of them ready to be detonated, the counter-terror units also seized tens of kilograms of potassium chlorate and other explosive materials as well as several hand grenades, Nataprawira said.
Police believe Singaporean Alim, an Afghanistan-trained bomb-maker,was a close aide to Malaysian master bomb-maker Azahari bin Husin, who was killed in late 2005 in a shoot-out with anti-terror police at his East Java province's hideout.
Indonesia, which has the world's largest Muslim population, has been hit by a string of terrorist attacks blamed on JI since 2000, including bombings on the resort island of Bali in 2002 and 2005 and the Australian Embassy in Jakarta in 2004.
The Indonesian government, after initially being in denial about its terrorism problem, has made tremendous strides against JI since the 2002 Bali bombings. Authorities have arrested more than 300 suspects and convicted most of them.
However, the country's counter-terrorism police are still on a nationwide manhunt for Malaysian bomb-maker Noordin M Top, who leads a breakaway faction of JI is believed to be the mastermind behind all the bombings since 2000.
