Until now, the group was known only to have sympathizers with no active cells capable of planning and carrying out a plan such as Thursday’s in which five men attacked a Starbucks cafe and a traffic police booth with hand-made bombs, guns and suicide belts.
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Police chief Tito Karnavian, who also used to head the Indonesian counterterrorism agency Densus 88, said he believes Naim’s perpetrator network is based in Raqqa, and that Naim is one of those competing for leadership of ISIS in Southeast Asia.
The Islamic State group claimed the attack was carried out by its “soldiers” against citizens from the “crusader coalition”, referring to the US-led alliance combating the jihadists.
Depok area police chief Col. Dwiyono told MetroTV that the three men were arrested at dawn on the outskirts of Jakarta.
Citing unidentified police sources, Reuters and Metro TV News, a news outlet in Indonesia, reported a Canadian man had been killed in the attacks, which have been linked to the Islamic State group.
Authorities have named Bahrum Naim, an Indonesian believed to be fighting with IS in Syria, as the suspected co-ordinator, according to BBC report.
Video shot in the midst of the a gritty gun battle between police and ISIL-linked extremists in the heart of Jakarta appears to show the moment one of the militants blew himself up following a string of deadly bombings which killed two civilians and left 20 others wounded.
Indonesian police have said the attack followed the pattern of the Paris attacks in November that left 130 people dead.
An Indonesian and a Canadian were killed along with five of the attackers who were involved in an exchange of gunfire with the security forces. Witnesses said the gunman who emerged from Starbucks began firing at bystanders, reloading his weapon as security forces moved in behind the cover of moving vehicles. A shootout then broke out between the attackers and anti-terror police squads.
Last month, anti-terror police arrested nine men and said the group had wanted to “perform a “concert” to attract global news coverage of their existence here”.
A midday attack Thursday in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta, has been claimed by the Islamic State, or ISIS.
The last major militant attacks in Jakarta were in July 2009, with bombs at the JW Marriott and Ritz Carlton hotels.
Mr Douglas posted that some colleagues suspected a “Paris-type” attack featuring foreign fighters or ISIS supporters.
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“We need to pay very serious attention to the rise of Isis”, he told reporters outside the city’s oldest department store, Sarinah, the site of the attacks. Five of the attackers were also killed.
