Daesh, a group banned in a number of countries including Russian Federation and the United States, has claimed responsibility for the attacks.
Advertisement
Dwiyono, who called them suspected militants, said they were being questioned over possible links to the attacks.
Metro TV said there was no indication that the men – which it described as a bomb-maker, a firearms expert and a preacher – were linked to Thursday’s attack. Twenty people, including an Algerian, Austrian, German, and Dutchman, were wounded.
“The IS cell in southeast Asia includes Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and other countries.” said Jakarta Police Chief Tito Karnavian”.
Earlier, police told Al Jazeera that ISIL had made specific threats before Thursday’s attacks.
“The state, the nation and the people should not be afraid of, and be defeated by, such terror acts”.
About two hours later, another explosion was heard from a cafe near the Starbucks, about five minutes after 25 anti-terror policemen entered it. It was not clear if the explosion was a controlled detonation or a bomb. “There has been a lull in the shooting but someone is on the roof of the building and police are aiming their guns at him”, Reuters photographer Darren Whiteside said as the attack unfolded.
Employees survey the damage at the Starbucks cafe where an attack occurred on Thursday, in Jakarta, Indonesia, Friday, Jan. 15, 2016.
They also opened fire at people on the street. In either case, this was the first such attack in Jakarta since 2009, when militants bombed two Western hotels.
Convicted militant Afif, who also went by the name Sunakim, had been seen in photos that circulated in the news media. The city centre’s notoriously jammed roads were largely deserted.
Then two militants outside the coffee shop seized two people – one of them a foreigner – dragged them into a parking lot and shot them, said Charliyan, the Jakarta police spokesman.
While the bomb and gunfire attacks in Jakarta were continuing a picture emerged of a gunman on the streets.
But the country had been on edge for weeks over the threat posed by Islamist militants.
The radical group controls territory in Syria and Iraq, and its ambition to create an Islamic caliphate has attracted some 30,000 foreign fighters from around the world, including a few hundred Indonesians and Malaysians.
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.
Preventing such attacks requires better intelligence and needs more effective sharing of information among the people who need to know it, our correspondent adds.
Police said 20 people were injured in the attacks, including five police officers.
One of the suicide bombers.
Indonesian authorities were yet to offer concrete details from their investigations.
A police spokesman, Anton Charliyan, confirmed on Friday that those who organised the attacks were associated with IS.
Advertisement
Authorities have named Bahrum Naim, an Indonesian believed to be fighting with IS in Syria, as the suspected co-ordinator, according to BBC report.
