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Police's counterterrorism squad foils plot to bomb State Palace
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On alert: Police personnel guard a neighborhood in Bintara Jaya subdistrict, Bekasi, West Java, on Saturday after the National Police’s Densus 88 counterterrorism squad found a high explosive bomb in one of the houses in the area, along with a woman who was allegedly designated to detonate the bomb at the Presidential Palace compound in Jakarta. (Antara/Risky Andrianto)
T
he National Police’s Densus 88 counterterrorism squad has arrested two men and a woman in Bekasi, West Java, for allegedly plotting a bomb attack at the State Palace in Central Jakarta.
The first two suspects, identified only as NS and AS, were arrested at around 3:40 p.m. on Saturday on the Kalimalang overpass, while the other suspect, a 27-year-old woman identified only as DYN, was arrested 10 minutes later at a rented house in Bintara Jaya subdistrict.
From the house, the police found a high-explosive bomb weighing around 3 kilograms packed into a pressure cooker.
“The bomb was to be detonated at the State Palace during the Presidential Security Detail’s [Paspampres] handover ceremony tomorrow [Sunday],” Jakarta Police spokesman Sr. Comr. Raden Prabowo Argo Yuwono said on Saturday evening.
(Read also: High explosive bomb prepared to attack State Palace)
Since July, the palace has opened the ceremony, which marks the changing of the guards at the palace, to the public every second Sunday of the month.
The event, starting at 8 a.m., is held on Jl. Medan Merdeka Utara, directly in front of the Merdeka Palace, a part of the State Palace complex that serves as the President’s office. It usually attracts a crowd of people, some of them visitors to the iconic National Monument square, located in front of the palace.
In January, a terrorist attack on Jl. MH Thamrin, Central Jakarta, left four terrorists and four civilians dead, and injured more than 25. (hwa)
