Jakarta - Indonesian police arrested eight suspected terrorists in the city of Solo on Saturday, finding homemade bombs and explosive materials in their houses, an official said.
“The anti-terror police arrested eight (terror) suspects in Solo and its surrounding areas,” national police chief Timur Pradopo said, adding that explosives were defused during the raids on two houses.
He said that the arrested suspects were linked to an extremist group which planned to carry out attacks against police, without mentioning the group's name.
Saturday's arrest came after a spate of terror-related incidents this month, including an explosion at a house suspected of being a bomb workshop in Depok, near Jakarta, in which three people were injured.
Earlier this month, a shootout in Solo, which is in the province of Central Java, left two terror suspects and an anti-terror officer dead.
National police spokesman Boy Rafli Amar told reporters on Saturday that detonators, black powder, sulphur, and nitroglycerin were found in the raids.
Police also found books promoting jihad (Islamic holy war), he said.
“Among the arrested suspects, two of them played an important role and acted as the group leaders who recruited people, purchased and assembled materials to make homemade bombs,” Amar said.
The police spokesman had said earlier that the group's potential targets were the elite Brimob police headquarters, the office of Indonesia's counter terror Detachment 88 squad, and a police station in Jakarta.
Indonesia, the biggest Muslim country by population, has waged a crackdown on militant groups over the past decade with anti-terror police claiming the deaths of some of the country's most notorious terrorist suspects in bloody raids. - Sapa-AFP