Jakarta worker recounts terror of IS-claimed attack

The disclosure came as police beefed up security in government offices, police stations, shopping centers and diplomatic missions across the capital following Thursday’s attack that left two civilians – an Indonesian and a Canadian – and five assailants dead.

This week, that conviction was punctured by a bold, daylight attack in the heart of Jakarta’s busy commercial district.

Supporters of the Islamic State group also circulated a claim of responsibility for the attack on Twitter late Thursday.

The statement said the attacks targeted a gathering of citizens from the “Crusader coalition”, referring to the US-led alliance of countries combatting IS in Iraq and Syria.

Three men were arrested near Jakarta early on Friday, police told the media.

Authorities reportedly said that they have established the identities of four of the five attackers.

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.

He said that an Ahmad Muhazan Saron had kicked off the siege by blowing himself up in a cafe, while two others had died when a bomb one of them was carrying exploded as they tried to throw it at police.

Five attackers died, and four others were captured, according to the Indonesian national police.

Workers clean up outside the Starbucks cafe where an attack occurred on Thursday, in Jakarta, Indonesia, Friday, Jan. 15, 2016.

Indonesia – which has been attacked by Islamist militants several times – had been on high terror alert amid IS threats to target Jakarta. “We have them in our pocket and we can identify them – whether it be in Java or outside Java”, he said.

It’s suspected there was a relationship between the Jakarta attack and the person killed in Poso, who was a member of the Santoso group, Haiti said on Saturday. “We can not say how many people have been caught yet because it may interfere with our tragedy”, said Chief of Metropolitan Police Public Relations Mohammad Iqbal, who jointly held in the press conference.

The alleged mastermind behind the Jakarta attack, an Indonesian citizen fighting with Islamic State in Syria, is believed to have used social media extensively to share his beliefs about the group and communicate with contacts in Indonesia using blog posts and mobile messaging apps.

Indonesia is the world’s most populous Muslim nation. The Islamic State has increased recruitment in Indonesia.

Indonesian authorities said Friday they had identified one of the attackers responsible for the deadly explosions in Jakarta a day earlier as a former terrorism convict who was released from prison early.

Harits Abu Ulya, an expert on militant Islam and a former commander in the militant group Hizbuh Tahrir, told CNN that he mentored his “little brother” Naim and stayed in contact with him long after the younger man went to Syria.

If confirmed to be the work of Katibah Nusantara, which is made up primarily of Malay-speaking Indonesians and Malaysians, it would mark the first violence in Southeast Asia by the group.