Indonesian police said they have arrested 18 more suspected members of the Jemaah Islamiyah terror network and seized guns and explosives.
As the Muslim cleric accused of leading JI went on trial for treason, national police chief General Da'i Bachtiar said the seizures indicated that suspects were planning fresh terrorist attacks before next year's general elections.
Among those arrested was Abu Rusdan, who police said had taken over from Abu Bakar Bashir as leader of JI.
The arrests and arms finds were announced the same day as Bashir's trial began in Jakarta. JI is blamed for the Bali blasts last October 12 which killed 202 people and for a string of other bombings.
"Earlier today we have arrested someone who you might not be too familiar with, but he has been identified as Abu Rusdan," national detective chief Erwin Mappaseng told reporters.
"Abu Rusdan, according to information from Nasir Abbas and several other people, is the current emir [leader] of Jemaah Islamiyah, the successor of Abu Bakar Bashir." Nasir Abbas, a Malaysian, is said to be a sub-regional chief of JI. His arrest was announced earlier Wednesday by Mappaseng. Mappaseng said Rusdan took over the regional network when Bashir was arrested last October 20.
The 18 arrests – including three more Bali suspects – appeared to mark a major breakthrough in the campaign to crush JI, which dreams of creating a pan-Islamic state.
It aims to destabilise the region through terror attacks and unite Indonesia, Brunei, Malaysia, Singapore and the southern Philippines under a fundamentalist umbrella.
Rusdan, an Indonesian, was detained in the town of Kudus in Central Java earlier Wednesday. He replaced Bashir as "the head following the Bali bombing," Mappaseng said, adding that police were preparing charges against him.
The three Bali suspects were named as Syawab, alias Sarjio, who allegedly helped assemble the bombs; Umar Besar, alias Wayan, whose photofit was released last year; and Ahmad Rohim, alias Saad.
Nasir Abbas was arrested in Bekasi near Jakarta on Friday. Three others were held at Cileungsi, 12 more at Palu in Central Sulawesi and one at an undisclosed location.
JI has been strongly linked to the al-Qaeda network of Osama bin Laden. It has a network of supporters across Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and the southern Philippines and has reached out to Muslim organisations in Thailand and Myanmar, the International Crisis Group said in a report last year.
In Indonesia JI had staged some 50 bombings or attempted bombings since April 1999 including the Bali blasts, the research group said. These included bombings on Christmas Eve 2000 of 38 churches or priests which killed 19 people.
Singapore has 32 suspected JI militants in custody. And Malaysia says that since May 2001 it has detained 90 militant suspects including 65 members of JI.
Bashir, the alleged co-founder of JI, is accused in his indictment of waging a jihad or holy war to topple the Jakarta government and set up an Islamic state. He faces a 20-year jail term if convicted of treason.