Police say Jakarta attack funded by IS in Syria

He says two of the five men were previously convicted and imprisoned for terrorism offenses.

Now, with its claim of responsibility for Thursday’s suicide bomb and gun attacks in Jakarta – which left five attackers and two other people dead – the brutal grouping appears to be getting a foothold in Southeast Asia.

On Friday, Indonesian police said they arrested three people in a dawn raid on a suburban Jakarta house, where they found an Islamic State flag. Last month, anti-terror police arrested nine suspected militants and said they had planned attacks “to attract worldwide news coverage of their existence here”.

He said the majority of Indonesia’s population was Muslim and said the Jakarta attacks should remind people that terrorism was not just against one religion. Attackers set off bombs and exchanged gunfire outside a Starbucks cafe in Indonesia’s capital in a brazen assault Thursday that police said “imitated” the recent Paris attacks. “Seven people are dead and 26 wounded, including five police officers and 21 civilians – 19 men and 7 women”. Following the attacks, people in Jakarta took to social media with a defiant message: “We Are Not Afraid” (#KamiTidakTakut), a hashtag which was trending on Twitter.

The hashtag #KamiTidakTakut has emerged in the aftermath of Thursday’s attacks.

The Jakarta attack, following the extremist assaults in San Bernardino, Paris and Istanbul, suggests that the ability of IS to direct or inspire attacks around the world is building, he said.

The IS group already has affiliates in Libya and Nigeria, and has targeted a host of other countries like Yemen, Somalia and Afghanistan, using its signature brutality to lure disaffected fighters from other jihadists like the Taliban.

While Indonesia has cracked down on terrorist networks, it has feared creating a backlash if it acted against religious schools that preach violence, said Zachary Abuza, a professor at the National War College in Washington.

He identified one of the attackers as Sunakim, who was sentenced in 2010 to seven years in jail for his involvement in militant training in Aceh, but was released early.

Southeast Asian terrorism expert Sidney Jones wrote in November that Bahrum Naim has been urging his Indonesian audience to study the Paris attacks. Charliyan added police would be conducting raids Friday as they probe those responsible for the bloodshed, which spilled out in dramatic fashion on a bustling street in the mid-morning.

(CNN) – Bahrun Naim, the man authorities believe is the architect of Thursday’s deadly attack in Jakarta, is a member of ISIS and is living in the militant jihadist group’s de facto capital of Raqqa, Indonesian authorities believe.

Jakarta residents were shaken by Thursday’s events but refused to be cowed.

Haiti said a suspected militant was killed in a gunbattle in central Sulawesi, the hiding place of Indonesia’s most wanted Islamic radical, Abu Wardah Santoso, who leads the East Indonesia Mujahidin network that has pledged allegiance to IS.

The secretary general of the United Nations has condemned the bombings and gun attacks in Jakarta and expressed “his solidarity with the government and people of Indonesia”.

Taufik Andri, a terrorist analyst, said although the attack ended swiftly and badly for the attackers, their aim was to show their presence and ability.

“We have been informed by our intelligence that an individual named Bahrun Naim, based on the communications… instructed his cells in Indonesia to mount an attack in Indonesia”, said Karnavian.

“We have them in our pocket and we can identify them – whether it be in Java or outside Java”, he said. “This is a guy who has always had ambitions bigger than the organizations that he happens to belong to”, she said.