Indonesian police arrest suspects in presidential palace bombing plot

Indonesian police's anti-terror squad Special Detachment 88 (Densus 88) on Thursday arrested two more suspects involved in a terrorist cell that planned an attack against the presidential palace.

The two suspects, consisted as husband and wife, were arrested in their rented house in Tasikmalaya, West Java province on Thursday morning.

Police identified the wife, who goes by initial name of TS, as the one who motivated the would-be suicidal female bomber, DYN, in carrying out the misdeeds they called it as jihad.

TS also the one who introduced DYN with a suspect involved in the cell arrested by police earlier on Saturday.

"TS allegedly knows activities of the cell planning to bomb the presidential palace," said Indonesian Police headquarters spokesperson Boy Rafly Amar.

The role of the husband, HG, is still being investigated by police, Boy said.

The latest arrest against the two suspects in Tasikmalaya has made the arrested suspects who plotted to attack presidential palace increased to nine persons.

Police arrested seven suspects, whom they dubbed as Solo cell, on Saturday and Sunday. Those arrested ones consisted of four in Jakarta and three others in Solo, Klaten and Ngawi.

The latter three suspects were identified as assemblers of the high explosive bomb planned to be detonated by DYN in the presidential palace premises on Sunday.

Police confiscated the bomb in a rented dormitory room in Jakarta's eastern city of Bekasi on Saturday. The bomb was of a powerful one that was capable to flatten buildings in a radius of 300 meters, said the police.

Police said that the Solo-based terrorist cell was financed by Bahrun Naim, an Indonesian Islamic militant fighter staying in Syria who has close links with Islamic State (IS) senior figures. Endit