11 terror suspects arrested in Indonesia

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JAKARTA, Oct. 27 (UPI) -- A new radical Islamist group in Indonesia planned a series of attacks on government and U.S. targets, including the U.S. Embassy, officials said Saturday.

Eleven people were arrested, The Wall Street Journal reported. Suhardi Alius, a police spokesman, said agents with Detachment 88, a police anti-terrorism squad, seized explosive materials, detonators and ammunition along with a bomb-making handbook.

The suspects are members of a newly formed group, Haraqah Sunni for Indonesian Society, or Hasmi, Alius told reporters at a news conference. Investigators say their targets included the U.S. Embassy, the U.S. Consulate in Surabaya, a building near the Australian Embassy, the headquarters of the Indonesian subsidiary of a U.S. mining company and the headquarters of a central Java mobile police brigade.

Detachment 88 was formed after the 2002 bombings of two nightclubs in Bali. More than 200 people died in those attacks, 88 of them Australian.

The government stepped up security for the Oct. 12 commemoration of the 10th anniversary of the bombings when Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard visited Indonesia.