Militants are planning more attacks in Indonesia, already reeling from two devastating bomb blasts in less than a year, the police chief of the world's most populous Muslim country said yesterday.
General Da'i Bachtiar, speaking after a meeting with the country's council of Muslim clerics, said authorities needed to remain firm because the fight against terror was far from over.
He defended police operations following leads from the deadly bombing of Jakarta's JW Marriott Hotel last month which have netted more than two dozen suspected militants.
Controversy has surrounded some of those arrests, and the wives and relatives of 15 of the men have filed complaints with Muslim leaders.
Bachtiar said that although police had made progress in the Marriot bombing case and arrested many of the executors of the deadly blasts in Bali last October, several people involved in those atrocities were still at large.
Twelve people were killed at the Marriott, and 202 in the Bali nightclub blasts.
Indonesian authorities blame both attacks on Jemaah Islamiah, a Southeast Asian militant group with links to al-Qaeda.
"From our investigations, we can say they still plan to carry out bombings, store bombs and there are even some who are ready to conduct bombings through car bombs, vest bombs and other types of bombs," he told reporters at Jakarta's grand mosque.
"They must be found, prevented. The problem about the arrests was discussed in the meeting [with the clerics] and we have told our officers to avoid misunderstanding," he said.
Indonesia's Muslim community and human rights groups have complained loudly about some of the arrests, with some even labelling them as kidnappings because police failed to inform detainees' relatives quickly.
Bachtiar said that, if anyone was unhappy with the way officers carried out arrests, they could sue his office.
The 15 men whose relatives have complained are accused of a range of activities from making bombs to having knowledge of terror meetings.
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