Indonesian police say foil militant attack

By Staff
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Google Oneindia News

JAKARTA, June 11 (Reuters) Indonesian police foiled an attack with the weekend arrest of the suspected aide of the country's most-wanted militant and several other suspects, a police spokesman said today.

On Saturday, Indonesia's secretive anti-terror unit captured a man named Mahfud but also known as Yusron, who police said was an aide of Abu Dujana, thought to head a splinter group of Southeast Asian militant group Jemaah Islamiah.

Police said several others had also been detained but not been identified and that it was possible Dujana, Indonesia's most wanted fugitive, was among them.

Dujana is wanted in connection with several bomb attacks, including the 2004 Australian embassy blast and a car bombing at the JW Marriott hotel in Jakarta a year earlier.

''Based on our observation and investigation they (the group) had plans to carry out a terror attack... We foiled the plan and we have captured several men, but we are far from over,'' National Police spokesman Sisno Adiwinoto told reporters.

''Police are still chasing wanted terror suspects and conducting further investigation on the ground.'' Adiwinoto declined to disclose the target of the terror attack, but police planned to expand their search operations beyond Java island in search of Dujana.

He said Yusron was being questioned, but police still did not know his role in the organisation.

After a series of raids earlier this year, police revealed that Dujana had emerged as the head of a military wing of JI after the death in 2005 of master bomb-maker Azahari Husin.

Asian and Western authorities blame Jemaah Islamiah for a series of attacks in Southeast Asia, including the 2002 bombings that killed more than 200 people on the resort island of Bali.

Police previously said Dujana had direct control of the group's ammunition and explosives, including distribution and storage.

During raids in March, police said they had also found a huge cache of weapons, explosives and chemicals that could be used to make a bomb bigger than the main device used in Bali.

Although there has not been a major bomb attack since 2005, police say Indonesia still faces a considerable threat from Islamic militants.

REUTERS KK VV1552

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