Global condemnation ensued and Islamic State has claimed responsibility.
Advertisement
The country saw a spate of militant attacks in the 2000s, the deadliest of which was a nightclub bombing on the holiday island of Bali that killed 202 people, majority tourists. “It was just a Paris-inspired attack without being well-prepared”, he told The Associated Press.
Three men were arrested near Jakarta early on Friday, police told local media.
One of the five slain Jakarta attackers, Arif Sunakim, had served a seven-year jail sentence for attending a militant training camp, while another – unnamed by the police – had been previously been arrested for possessing ammunition during a trip to Indonesia by US President Barack Obama.
MetroTV broadcast footage of the handcuffed men being escorted by police.
The claim was posted on Twitter late Thursday.
“We are sure they belong to the ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) network”, he said.
Police identified four of the five attackers in Thursday’s violence. “All of them are suspects, aren’t they?” said Haiti.
Jakarta police chief Maj.
They also opened fire at people on the street.
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 attacks killed a Canadian and an Indonesian civilian.
“We will not say how many people or what sort of evidence we have as it will upset our strategy. But thank God it didn’t happen”, national police spokesman Maj.
“They looked like they were amateurs”, said Greg Barton, one of Australia’s leading experts on terrorism and a professor at Deakin University in Melbourne.
Alarm around the world over the danger stemming from Islamic State increased after the Paris attacks and the killing of 14 people in California in December.
Some 1,000 people linked to radical networks had been brought to justice in Indonesia since 2000, he said, but some had since been released from prison and had “the potential to pose a threat”.
Thursday’s attack prompted a security lockdown in central Jakarta and enhanced checks all over the city of 10 million. Some other high-rise buildings in the area were evacuated.
Police know the whereabouts of further suspects, he said.
Unconfirmed reports have said the police dragnet resulted in some arrests, but these have not been confirmed by authorities.
Following the acts of terror, Indonesian authorities stepped up security measures and vigilance nationwide.
It ended when two of the attackers were killed in a suicide bombing, said police, with the other three killed in gun battles.
We want to hear from you. Police helicopters hovered overhead as anti-terror squad troops rushed in.
Advertisement
He described hearing six explosions and tweeted pictures of the chaos outside his office window. “Didn’t experience this in 3.5 years in #Pakistan”, he wrote. That translates to more than 200 million Muslims in Indonesia. In the 2000s, militants linked up with al-Qaeda to carry out a string of attacks, the last in Jakarta in 2009 on luxury hotels, but have been under pressure from a concerted crackdown by security forces.
