Indonesia urges Southeast Asian unity against IS

Workers clean up outside the Starbucks cafe where an attack occurred on Thursday, in Jakarta, Indonesia, Friday, Jan. 15, 2016. Indonesians were shaken but refusing to be cowed a day after a deadly attack in a busy district of central Jakarta that has been claimed by the Islamic State group. AP

JAKARTA—Indonesia must strengthen its defenses against the Islamic State (IS) group and work with neighboring countries to fight it, Jakarta’s police chief said on Friday, a day after an attack by suicide bombers and gunmen in the heart of the Southeast Asian nation’s capital.

Just seven people were killed in the three-hour siege near a busy shopping center despite multiple blasts and a gunfight, and five of them were the attackers themselves.

But it was the first time IS has targeted the world’s most populous Muslim nation, and the brazenness of the attack suggested a new brand of militancy in a country where low-level strikes on police are common.

Police units across the country were put on high alert, some embassies in Jakarta were closed for the day and security was stepped up on the resort island of Bali, a draw for tourists from Australia and other Asian countries.

“We need to pay very serious attention to the rise of [IS],” Jakarta police chief Tito Karnavian told reporters outside the city’s oldest department store, Sarinah, where the attack unfolded on Thursday.

“We need to strengthen our response and preventive measures, including legislation to prevent them … and we hope our counterparts in other countries can work together because it is not homegrown terrorism, it is part of the [IS] network,” he said.

Experts agree that there is a growing threat from radicalized Muslims inspired by IS, some of whom may have fought with the group in Syria.

Three arrested

But they said the low death toll on Thursday pointed to the involvement of poorly trained local militants whose weapons were crude.

Indonesian police on Friday arrested three men on suspicion of links to the brazen attacks in Jakarta, and said they recovered a flag of IS from the home of one of the attackers.

The discovery of the flag bolsters authorities’ claim that the attack on Thursday was carried out by IS, which controls territory in Syria and Iraq, and whose ambition to create an Islamic caliphate has attracted 30,000 foreign fighters from around the world, including a few hundred Indonesians and Malaysians.

The arrests of the three took place at dawn at their homes in Depok on the outskirts of Jakarta, police said in a text message, citing Col. Khrisna Murti, director of criminal investigations who led the raid.

It said they were arrested for suspected links to the attackers. MetroTV broadcast footage of the handcuffed men being escorted by police.

Police raids

Raids were also under way across other parts of the populous island of Java and on other islands to round up suspected militants.

“Now we are sweeping in and outside Java, because we have captured several members of their group, and have identified them,” national police spokesperson Anton Charliyan said.

Five men attacked a Starbucks cafe and a traffic police booth with homemade bombs, guns and suicide belts Thursday, killing two people—a Canadian and an Indonesian—and injuring 24, three of whom were foreigners, six police officers and the rest Indonesian civilians.

The attackers were killed subsequently, either by their suicide vests or by police.

Charliyan told reporters a black IS flag was found in the home of one of the attackers and police believe they have established their identities.

He said two of the five men were previously convicted and imprisoned for terrorism offenses.

Grave challenge

The IS link, if proved, poses a grave challenge to Indonesian security forces because until now the group was known only to have sympathizers with no active cells capable of planning and carrying out such an attack.

The Associated Press reported that supporters of IS circulated a claim of responsibility for the attack on Twitter late Thursday.

The message said attackers carried out the Jakarta assault and had planted several bombs with timers. It differed from Indonesian police on the number of attackers, saying there were four.

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

In recent years Indonesian antiterror forces had successfully stamped out another extremist group known as Jemaah Islamiyah. It was responsible for several attacks in Indonesia, including the 2002 bombings of bars in Bali, which left 202 people dead, as well as two hotel bombings in Jakarta in 2009 that killed seven people.

Terrorism experts say IS supporters in Indonesia are drawn from the remnants of Jemaah Islamiyah.

A few hundred Indonesians are known to have traveled to Syria to join the IS. Few have come back.

Still, police believe that an Indonesian IS fighter, Bahrum Naim, who is in Syria may have inspired and instigated the Jakarta attack.

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

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

‘Stupid terrorists’

Jakarta residents were shaken by Thursday’s events but refused to be cowed.

The area near the Starbucks cafe remained cordoned off with a highly visible police presence. Onlookers and journalists lingered, with some people leaving flowers and messages of support.

“Stupid terrorists! Where did you get the idea that you can go to heaven by killing the innocents and then commit suicide, which is banned in Islam?” said one message.

Starbucks has closed all of its outlets in Jakarta until further notice.

A large screen atop the building that houses the Starbucks displayed messages that said “#prayforjakarta” and “Indonesia Unite.”

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.

Risti Amelia, an accountant at a company near the Starbucks said she was “still shaking and weak” when she returned to her office Friday. But because staff remained emotional, the company decided to send workers home, she said.

Show of presence, ability

Taufik Andri, a terrorist analyst, said although the attack ended swiftly and badly for the attackers, their aim was to show their presence and ability.

“Their main aim was just to give impression that [IS’s] supporters here are able to do what was done in Paris. It was just a Paris-inspired attack without being well prepared,” he told the AP. Those attacks in November killed 130 people. Reports from AP, AFP