Militants launched a gun and bomb assault killing at least six people in the centre of the Indonesian capital on Thursday, police said, in an attack that followed a threat by Islamic State fighters to put the country in their “spotlight”.
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Amateur video, posted on Twitter, appears to have caught one of the explosions outside a coffee shop in the Sarinah area. One of the bombs went off near a shopping mall in an area where prestigious hotels, embassies and office buildings are located.
There was no immediate word on who was behind the attacks.
The archipelago has been on alert against such groups, and more than 20 people suspected of having such links were arrested across Indonesia’s islands in late December.
Police snipers were deployed among hundreds of other security officers, some in armoured vehicles.
However, the emergence of the Islamic State group has raised concern that Indonesians returning from Middle East battlefields could stage attacks on home soil.
It said in a statement: “We are deeply saddened by the senseless acts that have taken place in Jakarta today; our hearts are with the people of Indonesia”.
Terrorists haven’t had the capacity to mount any major attacks since 2009, when suicide bombers attacked the Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotels in Jakarta.
1057 – A second explosion was heard in central Jakarta, Reuters eyewitnesses said.
“The state, the nation and the people should not be afraid of, and be defeated by, such terror acts”, he said.
1100 – A police officer was shot near the site of an explosion, according to domestic TV reports. “I see three dead people on the road”, Reuters quoted one of its photographers as saying.
Police earlier had said four attackers and three civilians had died, though confused and conflicting death tolls are common in the immediate aftermath of a terror attack.
Separately, Indonesian police said they suspected a local group allied to IS was to blame.
The federal government is investigating reports a Canadian may be among those killed in an attack in Indonesia’s capital which saw assailants set off explosions in a busy shopping area and wage gun battles with police.
DARREN WHITESIDE/REUTERS Witnesses said that three men blew themselves up at a Starbucks cafe in an area near the city’s United Nations building, though gunfire and other attacks were also reported.
A group of armed terrorists bombed and opened fire in the Indonesian capital of Jakarta on January 14, leaving at least seven dead and 23 more injured.
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With the operation to contain the attackers still going on, several things were unclear: Exactly how many gunmen were involved, and how many locations they struck. But strikes in recent years have been smaller and less deadly, and have targeted government authorities, mainly police and anti-terrorism forces.
