JAKARTA, May 6 (Xinhua) -- The anti-terror squad of Indonesian police have arrested eight militants belonging to IS-affiliated cells who had plotted to stage suicide bombings during announcement of the results of the presidential polls this month, police said on Monday.
The squad captured eight alleged terrorists from Thursday to Sunday, some of them were bomb makers in the outskirts of Jakarta, Lampung province, and North Sulawesi province, national police spokesman Brigadier General Dedi Prasetyo said.
The eight alleged militants were members of the outlawed Jemaah Anshorut Daulah (JAD), which is an allegiance of the IS terrorist group in Syria, the spokesman said.
"The cells will take benefit a momentum (of poll announcement) by launching suicide bombing strikes," he told a press conference at the national police headquarters.
The strikes were looked to encourage other militants' cells in other areas to stage similar attacks, the spokesman said.
Prasetyo said the militants will use the planned huge rally during the upcoming announcement slated on May 22, aiming at creating chaos.
The spokesman added the militants planned to disguise themselves as protesters.
Police personnel on duty are also among the target of the militant's strikes, said Prasetyo, citing that high explosive bombs have been prepared.
In a crackdown near Jakarta on Sunday, the squad gunned down one of the eight militants, and the bomb strapped in his body went off, killing him, Prasetyo said.
Members of the JAD had carried out several terrorist strikes in the country, including the multiple suicide attacks in East Java and Riau provinces in May, 2018, and suicide strikes in the a police station and Starbucks Cafe in the heart of Jakarta that killed eight people in January 2016, according to the police.
