Indonesia anti-terror squad kills 7 militants

Indonesia's elite anti-terrorism unit conducted severalbloody operations to root out suspected Islamic militants, killing seven andarresting 13 others, police said Thursday as they continued to investigate analleged plot to bomb the Myanmar Embassy.

Investigators said the suspected militants robbed banks andcommitted other thefts to fund terrorism. Police were trying to determinewhether any of the groups raided Wednesday and Thursday were connected to lastweek's alleged plot to retaliate against Myanmar for recent attacks on Muslimsin that country.

Police shot and killed three suspected militants earlyThursday after an all-night standoff at a house in the Central Java town ofKebumen. Four others were arrested, said National Police spokesman Brig. Gen.Boy Rafli Amar.

He said at a news conference that the militants had plannedto carry out a robbery. He said those who were killed had refused to surrenderand instead fired guns and lobbed homemade bombs at security forces.

The day before in the West Java village of Cigondewah, threesuspected terrorists were fatally shot after holing up for hours inside ahouse, said National Police chief Gen. Timur Pradopo. He said the men alsoengaged in a shootout and hurled bombs. One suspect was taken into custody, andAmar said another had been arrested a day earlier.

No officers were hurt in either incident.

Police said they had acted on information obtained throughinterrogating an alleged gun maker arrested Tuesday in the West Java village ofCipacing. Intelligence gathered from subsequent arrests allowed authorities toquickly move in and storm hideouts in the separate areas, Amar said.

A suspected militant was killed, and another arrested, inCentral Java's Batang town on Wednesday. Amar said in a text message that theywere suspected in a March jewelry shop robbery in Jakarta. A second suspect wasalso arrested in Kendal, Central Java.

Also on Wednesday, the anti-terror squad arrested fivesuspects in Jakarta, Indonesia's capital, and in neighboring Banten province.Authorities involved in the various operations also seized firearms, ammunitionand explosives.

Amar said the 13 suspects captured and seven killedWednesday and Thursday were linked to groups in Poso, a flashpoint of terrorismin Central Sulawesi where a Muslim-Christian conflict killed at least 1,000people from 1998 to 2002.

They were also allegedly involved in thefts to fund theirterrorist activities, including three bank robberies, Amar said. He added theyhad planned to set Jakarta's largest market, Glodok, on fire, though heprovided no details.

It was not immediately known if the suspected militants wereconnected to last week's alleged plot against the Myanmar Embassy, but it wasbeing investigated. Sectarian violence in that Buddhist-majority country haskilled scores of people, and tens of thousands of Muslims have been driven fromtheir homes.

Last week, two suspects were arrested in Jakarta with fivehomemade bombs in a backpack. Other explosive materials were recovered inside ahouse they rented in the city.

Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation, has beenbattling terrorists since bombings on the resort island of Bali in 2002 killed202 people, mostly foreign tourists.

Clusters of arrests involving suspected terrorists atvarious sites are common once the terrorism force, known as Densus 88, receivesinformation. Formed after the Bali attacks, it has received American andAustralian financial and technical assistance and has been instrumental in thearrests of hundreds of militants over the past decade. It is credited withreducing the threat of further attacks on Western interests in the country, butthe squad had been criticized for the high number of deaths resulting from itsraids. More than 70 suspects have been killed since the unit was established.

Terrorist attacks aimed at foreigners in Indonesia have beenlargely replaced in recent years by smaller, less deadly strikes targeting thegovernment, mainly police and anti-terrorism forces.