(Reuters) — Indonesia blamed Islamic State for an attack by suicide bombers and gunmen in the heart of Jakarta on Thursday (January 14) that brought the radical group’s violence to the world’s most populous Muslim country for the first time.
Just seven people were killed despite multiple blasts and a gunfight, and five of them were the attackers themselves, but the brazenness of their siege suggested a new brand of militancy in a country where low-level strikes on police are common.
A police post in the middle of Jakarta’s main street was destroyed, as the attackers targeted an area near a Starbucks cafe and Sarinah’s, Jakarta’s oldest department store.
It took security forces about three hours to end the attack after a team of at least seven militants traded gunfire with police and blew themselves up.
Jakarta police chief Tito Karnavia said Islamic State were to blame.
“The gang behind the attack is fighters from IS (Islamic State) that is based in Raqqa,” he told a news conference.
He named an Indonesian militant called Bahrun Naim as the mastermind behind the attack.
“The IS cell in Southeast Asia includes Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand and others. In Southeast Asia, there’s a militant named Bahrun Naim who wants to be the leader of the region. As a way of taking over the leadership, he declared his leadership in the southern Philippines. All leaders (of IS) in Southeast Asia are competing to be the chief. That’s why Bahrun Naim plotted this attack,” he said.
Police believe Naim is in the Syrian city of Raqqa.
An Indonesian and a Canadian were killed in the attack and 20 people, including a Dutchman who works for the United Nations Environment Programme, were wounded.
Indonesia has seen attacks by Islamist militants before, but a coordinated assault by a team of suicide bombers and gunmen is unprecedented and has echoes of the sieges seen in Mumbai seven years ago and in Paris last November.
