Media reports say ISIS had claimed responsibility for the attacks on its Telegram channel, and the group’s supporters also circulated a claim of responsibility for the attack on Twitter late Thursday.
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Raids were also underway across other parts of the populous island of Java and on other islands to round up suspected militants.
Indonesia has identified one of the attackers in the deadly Jakarta assault as a convicted militant, whose picture went viral following the attack.
“Police arrested 12 people linked to the Jakarta attack from West and Central Java as well as East Kalimantan”, national police chief Badrodin Haiti told reporters on Saturday.
Indonesia specialist Greg Fealy, from the Australian National University, said the attacks confirmed the growing threat IS posed in Indonesia, but warned the outcome could have been much worse.
Australian Attorney-General George Brandis, who was in Jakarta recently to bolster security coordination, told the Australian newspaper he had “no doubt” Islamic State was seeking to establish a “distant caliphate” in Indonesia.
“We need to strengthen our response and preventive measures, including legislation to prevent them… and we hope our counterparts in other countries can work together because it is not home-grown terrorism, it is part of the ISIS network”, Tito Karnavian said, using an acronym for the Syria-based group. It differed from Indonesian police on the number of attackers, saying there were four.
Dwiyono, who called them suspected militants, said they were being questioned over possible links to the attacks.
Information for this article was contributed by Stephen Wright of The Associated Press.
In recent years, Indonesian counterterrorism forces successfully stamped out the extremist group Jemaah Islamiyah that was responsible for several attacks, including the 2002 bombings of bars in Bali which killed 202 people, as well as two hotel bombings in Jakarta in 2009 that killed seven people.
A few hundred Indonesians are known to have traveled to Syria to join the IS.
Still, many experts believe that Indonesia, a vibrant democracy where the vast majority of Muslims practise a moderate form of Islam, is most unlikely to be tipped into a cauldron of Islamist militancy. Khalid added that three other suspects were also arrested at the Kuala Lumpur airport this week after returning from Turkey.
Instead of expressions of fear, residents of Jakarta praised the police for quickly neutralising the attackers.
Police Inspector-General Khalid Abu Bakar said in a statement that the 28-year-old Malaysian confessed to planning a suicide attack after receiving orders from a foreign member of “Islamic State” (IS) in Syria.
The area near the Starbucks cafe remained cordoned off with a highly visible police presence.
“A large screen atop the building that houses the Starbucks displayed messages that said “#prayforjakarta” and “Indonesia Unite”.
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“I am not afraid of terrorists because life is in Allah’s hands, and today is Friday so, God willing, nothing bad will happen”, said Toto Suhadi, 52, a gardener watering plants near the attack site.
