Police probe IS-links in Jakarta attack

Islamic State has claimed responsibility for a gun and bomb attack in the centre of Jakarta in which seven people, including five attackers, were killed.

Police chief Colonel Dwiyono, from the Depok area south of the capital, told Indonesia’s MetroTV the men were arrested at dawn at their homes while they were sleeping.

One of the most unsafe militant groups in Indonesia is Jemaah Islamiyah, which was believed to have masterminded the Bali bombings and the 2004 truck bombing of the Australian embassy in Jakarta that killed 11. This area is an important shopping and business center within Jakarta’s Central Business District.

In a separate statement, National Police deputy chief Budi Gunawan said there were five attackers, two of whom were killed in suicide bombings.

Indonesian national police spokesman Anton Charliyan confirmed on Thursday night that the terrorists were “from the ISIS group”, and that the word “concert” was key to their chilling operation that also left 19 people injured, the Sydney Morning Herald reports.

Insp Gen Karnavian said Naim’s “vision” was to unite various IS-supporting groups across South East Asia. Those killed included an Indonesian and a Canadian.

At the scene of the attack, which played out between a Starbucks cafe and a traffic police booth, life had largely returned to normal on Friday.

At least one of the attacks targeted a Starbucks café near a police checkpoint, with witnesses telling Associated Press that three attackers detonated suicide vests.

“We need to strengthen our response and preventive measures, including legislation to prevent them”, said Tito Karnavian.

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

Officials said all five attackers were killed.

Newspapers carried bold front-page headlines declaring the country was united in condemnation of the attack, which was the first in Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim-majority nation, since the hotel bombings in 2009.

The Jakarta attack was an event countries across the Asia Pacific had been fearing for some time. They include four foreigners and six police officers.

The claim was shared on Twitter late Thursday, and the U.S.-based SITE Intelligence Group said it also was circulated among pro-IS groups on other media.

In a recent blog post, entitled “Lessons from the Paris Attacks”, Naim had urged his Indonesian audience to study the planning, targeting, timing, coordination, security and courage of the jihadis in the French capital.

Indonesians, however, responded to the attack with a powerful message.

Indonesian President Joko Widodo tweeted on Friday that there was “no place for terrorism on Earth” and that “every citizen in the world” needed to fight it.

Terror analysts warn that the group, believed to include fighters predominantly from Indonesia but also Malaysia and elsewhere in the region, has threatened for more than a year to bring the jihad home.