Explosions, gunfight rock Jakarta; 7 dead

A police armored vehicle is parked outside a Starbucks cafe after an explosion in Jakarta, Indonesia Thursday, Jan. 14, 2016. AP

JAKARTA—Islamic State (IS) militants launched a gun and bomb assault on Indonesia’s capital on Thursday, police and media said, marking the first assault on the Muslim-majority country by the radical group, but five of the seven people killed were the attackers themselves.

It took security forces about three hours to end the siege near a Starbucks cafe and Sarinah’s, Jakarta’s oldest department store, after a team of around seven militants traded gunfire with police and blew themselves up.

A police officer and a Canadian man were killed in the attack, which—with the attackers—took the death toll to seven. Seventeen people, including a Dutch man, were wounded.

Two of the militants were taken alive, police said.

“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.

Jakarta’s police chief told reporters: “Isis is behind this attack definitely,” using a common acronym for Islamic State, and he named an Indonesian militant called Bahrun Naim as the man responsible for plotting it.

The drama played out on the streets and on television screens, with at least six explosions and a gunfight in a movie theater.

Armored cars, helicopters

“The Starbucks cafe windows are blown out. I see three dead people on the road. There has been a lull in the shooting but someone is on the roof of the building and police are aiming their guns at him,” Reuters photographer Darren Whiteside said as the attack unfolded.

Police responded in force within minutes. Black armored cars screeched to a halt in front of Starbucks and sniper teams were deployed around the neighborhood as helicopters buzzed overhead.

After the militants had been overcome, a body still lay on the street, a shoe nearby among the debris. The city center’s notoriously jammed roads were largely deserted.

Indonesia has seen attacks by Islamist militants before, but a coordinated assault by a team of suicide bombers and gunmen is unprecedented and has echoes of the sieges seen in Mumbai seven years ago and in Paris last November.

The last major militant attacks in Jakarta were in July 2009, with bombs at JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotels.

The country had been on edge for weeks over the threat posed by Islamist militants. Counterterrorism police had rounded up about 20 people with suspected links to IS, whose battle lines in Syria and Iraq have included nationals from several Asian countries.

History of attacks

Indonesia has the world’s largest Muslim population, the vast majority of whom practice a moderate form of the religion.

The country saw a spate of militant attacks in the 2000s, the deadliest of which was a nightclub bombing on the holiday island of Bali that killed 202 people, most of them tourists.

Police have been largely successful in destroying domestic militant cells since then, but officials have more recently been worrying about a resurgence inspired by groups such as IS and Indonesians who return after fighting with the group.

Alarm around the world over the danger stemming from IS rocketed after the Paris attacks and the killing of 14 people in California in December.

On Tuesday, a Syrian suicide bomber killed 10 German tourists in Istanbul. Authorities there suspect the bomber had links to IS.

Among those arrested in Indonesia’s crackdown late last year was a member of China’s Uighur Muslim minority with a suicide-bomb vest. Media said two other Uighur suspects were on the run.

Indonesian security forces have also intensified a manhunt for a militant leader called Santoso, regarded as Indonesia’s most high-profile backer of IS, in the jungles of Sulawesi Island. Santoso had threatened to unleash attacks in Jakarta.

In Thursday’s attack in Jakarta, television reports said six bombs went off and a Reuters witness saw police exchanging fire with gunmen.

Several hours after the attacks began, the witness heard more gunfire and at least one more explosion.

One blast was in a Starbucks cafe and security forces were later seen entering the building.

“The Starbucks cafe windows are blown out. I see three dead people on the road. There has been a lull in the shooting but someone is on the roof of the building and police are aiming their guns at him,” said a Reuters photographer.

The attack initially appeared to target a traffic police outpost at a major intersection, which was heavily damaged by explosions, and at least one police officer was killed by gunfire from an assailant, according to witnesses who spoke to a local television station, TV One.

Series of explosions

Video showed a series of explosions in a parking lot across the street from the police outpost beginning at 10:40 a.m., just meters from the front doors of the Starbucks cafe and a Burger King restaurant.

The attack then appeared to broaden, with at least one assailant firing at the police outpost.

Numerous police vehicles and ambulances were on the scene of the attack, which occurred on Jalan Thamrin, one of Jakarta’s main thoroughfares.

The area is normally one of the busiest in the city, but photos circulating on social media after the attack began showed the wide boulevards nearly empty of cars.

Police suspected a suicide bomber was responsible for at least one of the blasts and up to 14 militant gunmen were involved in the attack, Metro TV reported.

Police snipers were deployed among hundreds of other security officers, some in armored vehicles.

A bomb disposal unit was seen entering the building where Starbucks is located, which also houses a cinema.

An office worker in a building above the Starbucks cafe, who declined to be identified, said he and fellow workers had been ordered to stay put after the first blast.

“That’s when I heard the second explosion. It was loud and powerful,” he said.

Jeremy Douglas, a United Nations official based in Bangkok, said he heard explosions as his car was pulling into the building housing his agency’s offices.

“The driver got a call that something happened at the building,” he said by telephone. “I got out of the car, and an explosion went off behind the building. I could feel it.”

Security crackdown

Douglas, the regional representative for Southeast Asia and the Pacific for the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, said he sought refuge in the offices and heard more explosions from there, as well as gunfire.

“It sounds very close,” he said.

Indonesia has been on edge for weeks over the threat posed by Islamist militants and counterterrorism police have launched a crackdown on people with suspected links to IS.

The government deployed 150,000 security personnel to safeguard churches, airports and other public places across the nation, and made a series of preemptive arrests.

“We have previously received a threat from Islamic State that Indonesia will be the spotlight,” police spokesperson Anton Charliyan told reporters. But he said the police did not know who was responsible.

Police said five suspected attackers were killed and four others believed to have been involved in the assault arrested.

‘Act of terror’

Indonesian President Joko Widodo was outside Jakarta when the attack unfolded but he cut his trip short to return to the sprawling capital of more than 10 million people.

He urged the public not to be fearful and or speculate on who was behind the attack.

“We must not be afraid, we must not be defeated by an act of terror like this,” he said in televised comments. Reports from AFP, AP

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