The New Nation - Internet Edition

AP, Jakarta

Anti-terror police arrested 10 suspected Muslim militants and seized a large cache of high-powered bombs, foiling a major attack targeting Westerners in the Indonesian capital, police and media reports said Thursday.

Among those detained was a Singaporean who met several times with Osama bin Laden, a senior police officer told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.

The arrests highlighted the lingering terror threat in Indonesia, which has been hit by a string of suicide bombings blamed on the regional terror group Jemaah Islamiyah since Sept. 11, 2001, including the 2002 attacks on Bali island that left 202 people dead, many of them foreign tourists.

There were no immediate details about the timing or the exact location of the planned strike.

Some of the suspects told police during interrogations that they had initially planned to attack foreign tourists on Sumatra Island, but shifted their target to Jakarta after realizing too many Indonesian lives could have been lost, TVOne quoted anti-terror police as saying.

The Indonesian government has won praise for arresting and convicting hundreds of Islamic militants since the Bali attacks, leaving the terror network severely weakened and isolated, with the most recent strike occurring more than 2 ½ years ago.