Indonesia police foil car bomb plot

Two would-be suicide bombers who were weeks away from launching a car-bomb attack were killed during a police raid near Jakarta early Saturday, the Indonesian police chief said.

National police chief Bambang Hendarso Danuri said the two men were shot dead as they were about to detonate hand-made bombs during the raid, which uncovered a cache of explosive material and a car rigged as a bomb.He said the house in Bekasi, outside Jakarta, was being used as a base by a “cell of NMT,” referring to alleged terror mastermind Noordin Mohammed Top, who is wanted for multiple suicide bombings in Indonesia.“We had to shoot them because at the time of the raid they had hand-held bombs that were about to be thrown at the police,” he said, identifying the suspects as Air Setiawan and Eko Gepeng.

“They were would-be bridegrooms (suicide bombers) with special targets for attacks to be carried out two weeks from now.... This place was a cell of NMT.”Danuri said the raid was linked to an ongoing counter-terror operation in Central Java, where police had besieged a suspected Noordin hideout since Friday afternoon and had exchanged heavy gunfire with the occupants.Asked whether Noordin was inside the house in Beji village, the police chief said only “God willing.”The would-be bombers had been “accomplices” in the Australian embassy attack of 2004, when a massive suicide car bomb was detonated outside the embassy in central Jakarta, killing 10 people and wounding scores more, he said. -AFP