Indonesia tracking terror cells after Jakarta attack

But the casualties were relatively few compared with the mayhem and carnage caused by the Paris attacks.

It was not immediately clear whether they had direct links with the attacks.

Indonesian police yesterday arrested three suspected militants in a pre-dawn raid and hunted down others across the country, a day after an attack by Islamic State (IS) militants in the heart of Jakarta.

The Vietnamese ambassador in Jakarta has assured that all Vietnamese in the Indonesian capital are safe after Thursday’s deadly attacks, and Vietnam Airlines said services to the country won’t be affected.

The Algerian escaped with bullet wounds, police said, but the second man was shot dead.

Workers stand near an electronic screen showing a message supporting the city atop the Starbucks cafe where Thursday’s attack occurred in Jakarta, Indonesia, Friday, Jan. 15, 2016.

The message said attackers carried out the assault in Jakarta and had planted several bombs with timers. It said they wore suicide belts and carried light weaponry.

The statement could not be independently verified by The Associated Press, though it resembled previous claims made by the group.

Tito Karnavian, Jakarta’s chief of police, said the horror unfolded this morning after one of the gang blew himself up in a Starbucks coffee shop.

They are now being held at the Depok police station. “But thank God it didn’t happen”, national police spokesman Maj. General Anton Charliyan, spokesman of the national police. They said the attackers imitated the terror actions in Paris, which killed 130 people.

The Syria-based mastermind behind the Jakarta attacks took “lessons” from Paris when orchestrating the event which killed two civilians.

Indonesia suffered several large bomb attacks by Islamic radicals between 2000 and 2009, but a security crackdown weakened the most unsafe networks, and there had been no major attacks since 2009. Thamarin Street is home to many luxury hotels, high-rise office buildings and embassies, including the French. Two were previously convicted militants.

Naim, believed to be in Syria, is said by authorities to be a founding member of Katibah Nusantara, the grouping of Southeast Asian fighters there.

Indonesian President Joko Widodo ordered security forces to hunt down the perpetrators and their network.

“These acts of terror are not going to intimidate nation-states from protecting their citizens and continuing to provide real opportunity, education, jobs, possibilities of a future”, he said.

The attackers captured worldwide publicity by carrying out the first deadly attack in Jakarta since 2009, weeks after authorities said they knew of a credible threat. The militant was killed in a gun battle in Central Sulawesi, while two others were arrested in the city of Cirebon in West Java, Reuters reported, citing police.

In Malaysia, police also beefed up security in public places.

The eavesdropping helped lead police to the arrest of more than a dozen men across the populous island of Java who were suspected of planning attacks over the Christmas and New Year holidays. “We heard a fourth, a fifth, a sixth and there’s gunfire”.

“The quick response within three hours was greatly appreciated by international world”, she said, referring to the police operation at the scene. Reporters and bystanders were kept behind police lines.