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Indonesian cops shoot dead 3 terror suspects

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JAKARTA Indonesian anti-terrorism officers shot dead three suspected Islamic militants on Saturday in the central Java city of Yogyakarta, police said.

National police spokesman Mohammad Iqbal said the officers from the elite unit shot the suspects after being attacked with "sharp weapons and a firearm".

Two officers suffered arm wounds, and the police seized four machetes and a revolver, Reuters reported.

According to terrorism unit Densus 88, the three suspects are believed to be linked to five others who were arrested on Wednesday.

"The whereabouts of the three terrorists was a follow-up to the five terrorists captured earlier," said another police spokesman.

He said the incident, which occurred at 5 pm, saw the police chase down four suspects, who rode two motorcycles, the Jakarta Post reported.

Two of them were shot in front of an office, while the other two fled. One of them allegedly hijacked a lorry, injuring the driver's assistant and forcing the driver to help him escape.

The lorry stopped after it hit a garage. Its owner, Mr Gito Sambodo, said that the suspect then ran towards his brother's home.

"He held my brother's wife hostage and put a sickle to her neck," he said.

But she managed to escape and shouted for help. As the suspect hid in her kitchen, the police surrounded the site and began shooting. The suspect died in the shootout, which lasted several minutes.

The spokesman also said Densus 88 and the Yogyakarta police previously arrested five alleged terrorists in Mlati, Sleman regency, and Mrisi and Pleret in Bantul regency, Tempo reported.

Mr Iqbal said the men were believed to be members of Jemaah Ansharut Daulah, a loose grouping of hundreds of Islamic State in Iraq and Syria sympathisers that is on a US State Department terrorist list, Reuters reported.

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