Indonesia foils suicide attack in 33 anti-terror raids before Christmas
Thirty-three counter-terror raids across Java ended Sunday in nine arrests of suspects in suicide bombing plots in Jakarta during the Christmas-New Year holiday. Shopping malls, police stations, churches and Shiite mosques were expected targets. Five detainees were linked to Islamic State and four, including a senior commander, to the Jemaah Islamiyah terror network responsible for the 2002 Bali atrocity and its 202 victims. Seized in evidence were fertilizer, paraffin, nails and four cleavers. The heightened terror alert in the most populous Muslim country came after senior ministers from Australia and Indonesia agreed to boost intelligence sharing, including on terrorism financing. The Australian Federal Police, the FBI and Singaporean authorities assisted in uncovering the terror plots.