Stephen Fitzpatrick, Jakarta correspondent | July 04, 2008
INDONESIAN police were last night interrogating 10 terrorism suspects after discovering at least 20 complete bombs and 50kg of explosives in an arms cache in the southern Sumatran city of Palembang.
One of the men was an English teacher from Singapore, police revealed, with direct links to the fugitive Singaporean Jemaah Islamiah leader Mas Selamat Kastari. The man, identified only by the initials MH, is believed to have instructed the other detainees in bomb-making.
The men, among whose number was also at least one who trained in jihad warfare in Afghanistan, were flown to Jakarta yesterday aboard a police plane for questioning.
The bombs reportedly were constructed with live bullets rather than the ball bearings typically used in JI attacks.
However, authorities said there was still a strong likelihood the men were JI-linked, including to key terrorist Noordin M. Top, whose support network is in central Java but who has been on the run for several years.
Jakarta-based terrorism analyst Sidney Jones described the swoop as "a big deal" and said she expected "a trove of new information" to emerge from interrogations.
Members of the elite Detachment 88 anti-terror brigade, as well as the bomb squad, made the arrests.
The explosive devices were thought to have a potential for creating an even more devastating blast than those built by former JI master bomb builder Azahari bin Husin, the brains behind the bombs used in the 2002 Bali attacks, in which 202 people, including 88 Australians, were killed.
Some authorities said the discovery indicated that Azahari, killed in a shootout in east Java in 2005, had passed on his skills to a new generation of radicals.
Initial reports said the cache had originally been intended to be used in attacks in the western Sumatran city Bukit Tinggi of last July, during the country's major school holiday, and several of the bombs had been transported to their target area.
However, the plan was abandoned when it was realised there would be a heavy Muslim casualty toll, reports said.
South Sumatra police chief Inspector General Ito Sumardi said this week's arrests had cut off a major terrorist network in its developmental stages. "These arrests indicate that a large-scale terrorist network had begun to infiltrate into South Sumatra," he said.
Indonesian police and immigration authorities have been warning citizens to be on the lookout for the Singaporean fugitive Kastari; Palembang, on the southeastern side of Sumatra island, is easily accessible from the island state.
The first arrest was of the Singaporean last Saturday, with the others following. Two of the group were seized on Tuesday, just two hours before President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono was due to address a teachers' association conference in the city.
At least another seven men were arrested throughout the day on Wednesday, and all nine were flown to Jakarta for questioning yesterday afternoon. The status of the 10th man remained unclear last night.
The men were arrested at various locations around the city, with the bulk of the bombs, explosives and other chemicals and electronic devices found stashed in the ceiling of a rented house.
The evidence seized was being transported by road to Jakarta.
Terror expert and author of Inside Al-Qa'ida Rohan Gunaratna said the arrests were very significant.
"They have been looking at the network for a long time - more than a year," he said. "For those who believe that JI has been dismantled, this proves that (it) remains a credible threat to Indonesia and the region."
Analysts, including Ms Jones, have warned that although JI generally appears to have been weakened through a series of raids, detentions and deadly firefights such as the one in which Azahari died, the organisation is constantly mutating and producing offshoots able to operate outside of any central command.
Much of JI's strategy in recent years has been aimed at fomenting domestic discontent, particularly in the troublespots of Poso, central Sulawesi, with members recruited from the organisation's Java heartland.
Even that activity has been severely restricted since a round of police raids at the beginning of last year, but there remain fears the organisation or its mutated branches could yet reactivate.
Additional reporting: Natalie O'Brien
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