Biodun Iginla, BBC News

Biodun Iginla, BBC News

Friday, January 15, 2016

Jakarta attacks: Indonesia 'hunting terror cells' linked to bombers

  • 32 minutes ago



  • From the section Asia
Media captionJakarta's Police Chief Tito Karnavian said the terror problem was "not home grown"

Jakarta's chief of police has said Indonesia is hunting terror cells believed to be behind Thursday's attack on the capital.
Two civilians and five attackers died in the gun and bomb assault in a busy commercial district.
Insp Gen Tito Karnavian said the attackers had been "neutralised" but were linked to groups across Indonesia and were "part of a global network".
The Islamic State (IS) militant group has said it was behind the attack.
It released a statement online saying it had been carried out by "soldiers of the Caliphate", targeting "citizens of the Crusader coalition" against the group.
Three men were arrested near Jakarta early on Friday, police told local media. It was not immediately clear whether they had direct links the attacks.
Authorities have named Bahrum Naim, an Indonesian believed to be fighting with IS in Syria, as the suspected co-ordinator.

Insp Gen Karnavian said Naim's "vision" is to unite the various IS-supporting groups across South East Asia.
Indonesia - which has been attacked by Islamist militants several times - had been on high terror alert following recent threats issued by IS.
Security forces battled militants for hours on Thursday in a major business and shopping district of Jakarta.
The assault ended when two of the attackers were killed in a suicide bombing, said police, with the other three killed in gun battles.
A Canadian and an Indonesian national, both civilians, also died and at least 20 people were injured.

'Game-changer' for Indonesia - Ali Moore, BBC News, Jakarta
Life is getting back to normal on the junction where the attack happened - but only up to a point.
Traffic is flowing and the road sweepers are busy, but the police post which was hit remains boarded up, and the Starbucks cafe at the centre of the attack is surrounded by iron fencing, curious onlookers and media using anything at hand to peer over the top at the blown out windows.
The condolence flowers have now been removed - probably to stop the crowds gathering to take selfies, risking their lives in the morning traffic.
But with the city's police chief admitting Thursday's assault is likely a game-changer for Indonesia, there is no doubt the risk of another attack has taken a new form. And no matter how "tiny" the group, as he called them, they have proved they can kill.

A map showing the location of attack sites in Indonesia
Insp Gen Karnavian told the BBC that main culprits had been "neutralised" but were "connected to other cells in Java and Sulawesi and we are chasing them".
He said one IS plot had been foiled at the end of 2015 and a number of people detained, among them a man who said he had been instructed by Naim.
Naim has been linked to the IS-allied East Indonesia Mujahidin Group (MIT), which is based on the island of Sulawesi.
The police chief said Indonesia had significantly developed its understanding of domestic terror networks since the 2002 bomb attack in Bali, which killed 202 people.
Some 1,000 people linked to radical networks had been brought to justice in Indonesia since 2000, he said, but some had since been released from prison and had "the potential to pose a threat".
"What we need to do today is strengthen capability and also sharing information with others because it is not home grown in Indonesia but it is part of a global network," he said.
Indonesian President Joko Widodo has condemned the attacks as "acts of terror".
He tweeted on Friday that there was "no place for terrorism on Earth" and that "every citizen in the world" needed to fight it.

Islamist attacks in Indonesia

Media captionA history of militancy in Indonesia
Indonesia has suffered militant attacks in the past, but has been relatively successful in curbing home-grown Islamist extremism after a spate of attacks in the last decade. Some of the deadliest include:
  • July 2009: Seven people killed and dozens wounded when two suicide bombers target Marriott and Ritz Carlton hotels in Jakarta
  • Oct 2005: Suicide attacks in Bali leave 23 dead, including the bombers
  • Sept 2004: Bomb outside Australian embassy in Jakarta kills at least nine people
  • Aug 2003: Bomb at Jakarta's Marriott Hotel kills 12
  • Oct 2002: Bali bombings kill 202, including 88 Australians
  • Dec 2000: Church bombings across the country kill 19
The Islamic State threat in South East Asia

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