8 held in Indonesia over poison plot

JAKARTA—Indonesia has arrested eight terror suspects who were plotting a mass poisoning of police personnel, an anti-terror officer said Saturday, as one report said they had planned to use cyanide.

The member of the police’s counter-terrorism squad, who did not want to be identified, said six suspects had been arrested late Friday in Jakarta after two were held in Pekalongan city, Central Java, on Thursday.

“They planned to attack police personnel by poisoning food at police office canteens,” the source said.

Tempo news website quoted an unnamed senior police official saying the suspects had planned to use cyanide.

Indonesia’s police headquarters has yet to issue an official statement on the case.

In recent months police have arrested dozens of suspects allegedly part of a new militant cell behind a series of recent incidents, including book bombs which were sent to Muslim moderates and counter-terrorism officials.

The cell was linked to an April suicide bomb attack in a prayer room at a police compound in Cirebon in West Java.

Police also foiled a bid to set off a massive bomb near a church on the outskirts of Jakarta at Easter. No one was killed in those incidents.

Indonesia has been rocked by a series of attacks staged by regional terror network Jemaah Islamiyah in recent years, including the 2002 Bali bombings which killed 202 people.