Indonesian Terrorists Planned to Film Indonesia Church Blasts: Police

The plotters of a foiled Easter church bombing in Indonesia planned to film the attack and could be behind other atrocities, police said Friday, with the nation on its highest alert level. 

Antiterror police arrested 19 suspects and defused five bombs around the church, on the outskirts of Jakarta, on Thursday. 

Some of the devices had been positioned on a nearby empty plot where a gas pipe runs underground. 

"They had prepared to shoot the bombing of the church and broadcast it. That was their plan," National Police spokesman Anton Bachrul Alam said. 

He said police arrested the mastermind of the planned attack in Aceh after he fled Jakarta. 

"This is a new cell. The mastermind had planned to activate the bombs on Friday at 9 a.m. using timers," Alam said. 

The suspects were also behind recent "book bombs" sent to several addresses including those of liberal Muslim figures and a counter-terrorism official, police said. No one was killed in those attacks. 

Many of the detainees had university degrees, according to police. 

Several of the 19 arrested could also be linked to last week's suicide bombing inside a local police headquarters compound in the city of Cirebon, in West Java, police said. 

The bomber, who detonated his explosives during Friday prayers in a mosque, was killed instantly and injured 30 people. 

The attack was the first suicide bombing inside a mosque in the world's largest Muslim-majority nation of 240 million people. 

"We are still on highest level of alert," Alam cautioned.

Jakarta police deployed 20,000 officers to safeguard Easter celebrations in the capital. 

Buky Sudradjat, a Christian who lives in South Jakarta, said that he attended a Good Friday church service and found it guarded by dozens of police. 

"The church service this morning was still packed with people despite the church bomb," Sudradjat said. "It's quite horrifying when I think about the bomb threat, but I still plan to come to church on Sunday for Easter service no matter what," he said. 

Indonesia has been rocked by a series of attacks staged by regional terror network Jemaah Islamiyah in recent years, including the 2002 Bali bombings which killed 202 people. 

Brussels-based think-tank International Crisis Group on Tuesday pointed to a new trend of small violent groups adopting "individual jihad" aimed at local "enemies", including police and Christians.