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imultaneous police raids on terrorism suspects in several locations in West Java have found indications that a French national was involved in a car bomb plot.

The police said the man allegedly provided a sedan for the suspected terrorists.

“The National Police, through our National Central Bureau [NCB], have begun coordinating with Interpol to detect the whereabouts of this man, who he really is, and whether he has been implicated in any terror attacks in other parts of the world,” National Police spokesman Insp. Gen. Edward Aritonang said on Monday.

“What I can tell you is that this man is French, and his wife is from Morocco,” he said.

Officers of National Police’s Detachment 88 antiterror squad found an old blue Mitsubishi Galant rigged with explosives during a raid on a rented house in Cibiru on Sunday.

Preliminary investigations have revealed the French man was the one who purchased the sedan for the terrorism suspects, who later prepared it to become a car bomb.

The counterterrorism squad found maps and sketches at the location which detailed planned attacks on several important sites.

“They planned to attack the National Police headquarters in Jakarta, West Java Police’s Mobile Brigade base in Bandung and a number of luxury hotels and embassies in Jakarta,” Edward said.

During the raid, antiterror officers captured two suspects, identified as Fahrul Rozi Tanjung and Hamzah.

Edward said he had not yet been informed on how the suspects were connected with the French man.

Inside the house, officers found a bomb factory filled with materials to produce explosives.

“From the house, we seized bottles of chemicals used as bomb ingredients like urea and potassium chlorate, as well as detonators and a digital weight scale,” Edward said.

Documents, VCDs, and books on jihad were also seized as evidence, he added.

The laboratory was run by a young chemical engineer named Kurnia Widodo, Edward said.

Edward added the suspects had twice conducted bomb tests in the mountainous area of Sumedang, West Java.

A few hours after the raid, police captured Kurnia in Padalarang, several kilometers from West Java capital of Bandung.

The Cibiru raid was part of series of simultaneous raids in several West Java locations.

A total of five suspects were nabbed on Sunday, including Abdul Ghofur, who was arrested in his house in Subang, and Kiki who was caught at Cileunyi bus terminal.

The raids were a precursor to the arrest of firebrand Muslim cleric Abu Bakar Ba’asyir in Banjar, West Java, on Monday morning.

Ba’asyir and his five bodyguards were detained and flown to Jakarta.

Noor Huda Ismail, a terrorism expert at the Institute for International Peace Building, said the West Java raids were a follow up on the arrest of Abdullah Sonata.

Sonata, who was arrested in Klaten, Central Java in June, is also alleged to have planned to bomb the Royal Danish Embassy in Kuningan, South Jakarta.

Edward confirmed Noor Huda’s statements, saying the West Java arrests came from the same network with the suspects arrested in a military-style training camp in Aceh Besar, Aceh, in February.

Edward said 102 people have been named as terrorism suspects since the Aceh raids; of which 66 have been detained.