Old militants with new IS brand seen behind Jakarta attack

Indonesian police announced Saturday they had arrested a man they believe financed the deadly Jakarta attacks, alleging the suspect received the funds from the Islamic State group (IS).

National Police Spokesman Anton Charliyan says an IS flag was found among the possessions of one of the attackers.

“It seems the police have seen the connecting thread, but I think I can’t or I’m not able to say more”, he told reporters on Friday. Until now, the group was known only to have sympathisers with no active cells capable of planning and carrying out a plot such as Thursday’s in which five men attacked a Starbucks cafe and a traffic police booth with handmade bombs, guns and suicide belts.

Police have singled out Indonesian extremist Bahrum Naim, believed to be a founding member of Katibah Nusantara, as orchestrating the operation.

The Indonesian police have rounded up at least five more suspected militants in connection with Thursday’s terror attack in the heart of Jakarta.

Indonesian police have revealed new details about the attack masterminds, and the victims.

Photographs showed Afif, dressed in a baseball cap and jeans, with wearing a backpack and shoulder bag, pointing a gun at a crowd at the scene of the attack in Jakarta.

“Islamic State fighters carried out an armed attack this morning targeting foreign nationals and the security forces charged with protecting them in the Indonesian capital”, Aamaaq news agency, which is allied to the group, said on its Telegram channel.

He was sentenced to seven years in jail for his involvement in the camp but was released last year, Haiti added. On Friday evening, police searched the home of another of the dead bombers whom they identified as Muhammad Ali.

Its extended name translates roughly as “Malay Archipelago Unit for the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria”.

Southeast Asia’s fairly open societies, easy travel and Muslim-majority populations in Indonesia and Malaysia make it vulnerable, said Vikram Singh, a former Obama administration defense official on South and Southeast Asia. “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 another acronym for the Syria-based group. Media said two other Uighur suspects were on the run.