MAGELANG, INDONESIA (JAKARTA POST/ASIA NEWS NETWORK) - A resident of Magelang, Central Java, uncovered a homemade bomb placed under a roadside batagor (fried fish dumpling) cart on Tuesday (Dec 27).

Packed inside a brown women's handbag, the bomb contained ammunition powder, a circuit, cables and a watch, which were all wrapped with brown tape. There was also a piece of paper with messages written in Arabic inside the package.

"It's a bomb circuit. There was ammunition powder weighing around 2 ounces," Central Java Police spokesman, Senior Commander Djarod Padakova, said in Semarang on Tuesday.

Magelang resident Arif Rohman found the home-made bomb when he was about to prepare satay to sell on Jl. Pahlawan, Tegalrejo, at around 4.30am. He then took the bag from under the cart and put it on a wooden chair in front of a pharmacy.

Curious about its content, he later opened the bag and discovered the bomb with a piece of paper written with Arabic characters. He reported his finding to a neighbourhood association head in the area.

The police secured the location following a report submitted by Mr Arif and several other people at 6.30am.

"The police bomb squad disposed it at around 1pm," said Cdr Djarod.

He said pieces of the disposed bomb had been collected for a further investigation to ascertain what type of explosives it contained.

"Regarding whether it is a high or low grade explosive, the police's Indonesia Automatic Fingerprint Identification System is still examining it," he said.