In what is the first time the radical group has targeted the world’s most populous Muslim nation, Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack by suicide bombers and gunmen in the heart of Jakarta on Thursday.
The brazenness of their siege suggested a new brand of militancy in a country where low-level strikes on police are common even though just seven people were killed despite multiple blasts and a gunfight, and five of them were the attackers themselves.
On Thursday after a team of militants traded gunfire with police and blew themselves up, it took security forces about three hours to end the attack near a Starbucks cafe and Sarinah’s, Jakarta’s oldest department store.
While an Indonesian and a Canadian were killed in the attack, twenty people, including an Algerian, Austrian, German and Dutchman, were wounded.
“A group of soldiers of the caliphate in Indonesia targeted a gathering from the crusader alliance that fights the Islamic State in Jakarta,” the radical Islamist group said in a statement adding that 15 people were killed.
“ISIS is behind this attack definitely,” Jakarta’s police chief told reporters. An Indonesian militant called Bahrun Naim was named as the man responsible for plotting the attack by the police chief.
Police believe Naim is in the Syrian city of Raqqa.
With at least six explosions and a gunfight in a movie theater, the drama played out on the streets and on television screens. But experts pointed out that the low death toll indicated the involvement of local militants whose weapons were rudimentary.
Hours after the attack a bang caused by a tire bursting triggered a bomb scare that sent police cars rushing back to the scene in a sign of public unease.
“The president has said the nation and the people should not be scared and should not be defeated by acts of terror,” said palace spokesman Ari Dwipayana.
“The Starbucks cafe windows are blown out. I see three dead people on the road. There has been a lull in the shooting but someone is on the roof of the building and police are aiming their guns at him,” reported Reuters.
Within minutes there was police response to the attack with black armored cars screeching to a halt in front of the Starbucks and sniper teams deployed around the neighborhood even as helicopters buzzed overhead.
One man entered the Starbucks cafe and blew himself up, wounding several inside, Jakarta police chief Tito Karnavian said.
Two waiting gunmen opened fire on people as they poured out of the café. Using what was described as hand grenade-like bombs, two militants attacked a police traffic post nearby at the same time.
With a shoe nearby among the debris after the militants had been overcome. The city center’s notoriously jammed roads were largely deserted.
A coordinated assault by a team of suicide bombers and gunmen is unprecedented even though Indonesia has seen attacks by Islamist militants before. The incident echoed of the sieges seen in Mumbai seven years ago and in Paris last November.
There have been reports earlier by both Indonesian and Australian intelligence agencies that ISIS was seeking to establish a “distant caliphate” in Indonesia. Australian Attorney-General George Brandis, who was in Jakarta recently to bolster security coordination, told the Australian newspaper he had “no doubt” about this.
The last time Jakarta saw a militant attack was in 2009 when bombs were exploded at the JW Marriott and Ritz Carlton hotels. The country had been on edge for weeks over the threat posed by Islamist militants.
(Source:www.reuters.com)
Categories: Geopolitics
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