IS targets Jakarta, 5 jehadis among 7 killed
Islamic State militants launched a gun and bomb assault on Indonesia’s capital on Thursday, police and media said, marking the first assault on the Muslimmajority country by the radical group, but five of the seven people killed were the attackers themselves.
By : migrator
Update: 2016-01-14 14:19 GMT
Jakarta
Attackers set off explosions at a Starbucks cafe in a bustling shopping area in Indonesia’s capital and waged gunbattles with police on Thursday, leaving bodies in the streets as office workers watched in terror from high-rise buildings.
Police said five attackers and two civilians were killed, while 10 people were injured in the brazen attacks, which followed several warnings in recent weeks by police that Islamic militants were planning something big. It was unclear if any perpetrators remained at large.
Five hours after the major downtown street in Jakarta — not far from the presidential palace and the US Embassy — turned into a battleground, police declared the area near the Sarinah shopping mall secure.
“We believe there are no more attackers around Sarinah. We have taken control,” Jakarta police spokesman Col. Muhammad Iqbal said.
Gen. Anton Charilyan, a national police spokesman, said the attack involved an unknown number of assailants with grenades and guns. He said they imitated the recent “terror acts” in Paris and were likely from the Islamic State group, but gave no evidence.
It was the first major attack in Indonesia’s capital since the 2009 bombings of two hotels that killed seven people and injured more than 50. Before that, bombings at nightclubs on the resort island of Bali in 2002 killed 202 people, mostly foreigners.
Charilyan said police had received information in late November about a warning from the Islamic State group that “there will be a concert” in Indonesia, meaning an attack.
“This act is clearly aimed at disturbing public order and spreading terror among people,” President Joko Widodo, said in a statement on television. “The state, the nation and the people should not be afraid of, and be defeated by, such terror acts,” he said.
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