Indonesian police claimed on Friday to have thwarted a major plot by Islamic militants to carry out a new round of terrorist attacks in Indonesia after seizing the largest cache of explosives found since last year’s Bali bombings. In raids across Java over the past week police said they had arrested nine members of the al-Qaeda-linked Jemaah Islamiyah, the south-east Asian terror group blamed for the Bali attack. Also found were 22,000 bullets, detonators, 160 kilograms of TNT, 900 kilograms of potassium chlorate (a chemical used to make explosives and fireworks), and two M-16 assault rifles. If assembled, police said, the components could have created a bomb with more explosive power than the largest of three devices used in last October’s attack in Bali. That attack – the biggest seen in the world since September 11, 2001 – killed 202 people, largely foreign tourists. The arrests and seizures announced on Friday are a clear sign that JI, key leaders of which have been either detained or gone on the run since the Bali attack, remains a threat in Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim nation. Full Story
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