Indonesia police kill ‘terror suspects’

Five people shot dead on resort island of Bali “for planning acts of terrorism and robberies”.

Indonesian anti-terror police have killed five suspects in raids on the resort island of Bali.

“Five people who planned to carry out an act of terrorism and several robberies have been gunned down Sunday evening,” national police spokesman Boy Rafli Amar said.

“All of them died in shootouts. They opened fire at the police while trying to escape.”

More than 100 members of the elite Detachment 88 counter-terrorism force were seen in Sanur in the south of Bali where three suspects were killed in a villa, an AFP news agency correspondent said.

Two suspects were also killed in Denpasar, the island’s capital.

Officials told the Reuters news agency that the men planned attacks at several locations including a nightclub in the Seminyak beach resort close to where nightclub bombings in 2002 killed 202 people.

The suspects also planned robberies at a gold shop and money changer, they said. Police seized two firearms and dozens of bullets.

The five men were linked to the banned Jemaah Islamiah group, which carried out the 2002 bombings, Amar said

They were also part of a group who killed a police officer in a bank robbery in Medan, North Sumatra province, in 2010 to raise funds for attacks, he added.

Muslim-majority Indonesia has been rocked by a series of attacks staged by Jemaah Islamiyah in recent years, including the Bali bombings.

Source: Al Jazeera, News Agencies