Indonesia thwarts Islamic bombers

Australian:

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.

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Mass murder for Allah of non combatants is still a dream for many Islamic terrorist, but they are getting caught more often these days and that is a good sign in this war. It is getting much harder for them to launch a successful attack. The world owes Israel some thinks for this, because their tactics are paying off even for government in Muslim countries.

The NY Times story provides more details and a photo that will send shivers down the spine of the terrorist rights lobby. Some reports suggest that the bombs were intended to kill westerners in Jakarta.