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Jakarta Attack Kills 2, Raising Fears of Growing ISIS Reach Jakarta Attack Kills 2, Raising Fears of Growing ISIS Reach
(about 3 hours later)
JAKARTA, Indonesia — Explosions and gunfire rocked the center of the Indonesian capital on Thursday in an attack that raised the specter of an expanding Islamic State presence in Southeast Asia. At least two civilians were killed, the authorities said, along with five assailants. JAKARTA, Indonesia — The Islamic State claimed responsibility for a terrorist attack in the Indonesian capital on Thursday, raising the specter of an expanded presence by the group in Southeast Asia.
The assailants targeted a police traffic post on a busy thoroughfare, then set off explosions in an apparent suicide attack outside a Starbucks coffee shop across the street. Security forces stormed the area, and the police later said they had arrested four suspects. The Syrian civil war has been a source of inspiration for violent Islamists in Indonesia, and hundreds have traveled to Syria to join the Islamic State over the past several years. But recently they appear to have sought targets closer to home. Extremists claiming to represent the Islamic State carried out small-scale attacks in Indonesia and the Philippines last year.
“In the last six months, we’ve seen a spike of planning for violence in Indonesia,” said Sidney Jones, a terrorism expert and the director of the Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict in Jakarta. “It’s a desire to prove that jihadi groups are still alive and well in Indonesia and are committed to carrying out the ISIS agenda.”
In Thursday’s attack in the center of Jakarta, militants targeted a police traffic post near an affluent shopping area, then set off explosions in an apparent suicide attack outside a nearby Starbucks coffee shop. At least seven people were killed, including five of the assailants, and 23 people were injured, the police said.
The Islamic State took responsibility for the attack in a statement released on its official Telegram channel, an encrypted phone app.The Islamic State took responsibility for the attack in a statement released on its official Telegram channel, an encrypted phone app.
The Islamic State is not known to have carried out terrorist attacks in Southeast Asia before, but the region has long struggled against Islamic militancy and several videos have surfaced of Indonesians expressing support and pledging allegiance to the group. Gen. Tito Karnavian, chief of the Jakarta Provincial Police and the former head of the country’s elite national police counterterrorism unit, said at a news conference on Thursday that the perpetrators were linked to leaders of the Islamic State in Raqqa, Syria, and warned that the group was expanding its operations across the region, including in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand.
The attack was the first major one in Jakarta since the twin bombings of two hotels in 2009. He identified the organizer as an Indonesian citizen believed to be in Syria. The suspect, Bahrun Naim, is a leader of Katibah Nusantara, a Southeast Asian-based military unit under the Islamic State, General Karnavian said. The police appear to have been aware of Mr. Bahrun for some time.
Indonesia is the world’s most populous majority-Muslim country, but it has a secular government and influential Christian, Hindu and Buddhist minorities. Though it is far from the conflicts of the Middle East, the country has experienced several terrorist attacks by Islamist militants that have killed hundreds, including bombings on the resort island of Bali in 2002 and 2005, and at international hotels in Jakarta in 2003 as well as 2009. At least 16 terrorism suspects have been arrested in Indonesia in the past month alone, and the police said they received information in late November that the Islamic State was planning “a concert” in Indonesia, possibly meaning an attack.
Gen. Tito Karnavian, chief of the Jakarta Provincial Police and the former head of the country’s elite national police counterterrorism unit, said at a news conference on Thursday that the perpetrators of the attack were linked to leaders of the Islamic State in Raqqa, Syria, and warned that the Islamic State was expanding its operations across the region, including in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand. Despite the fear caused by an attack in a major Asian city, the limited casualties on Thursday raised questions about the terrorists’ destructive capabilities. The police said the explosives used had been grenades, much less powerful than those used in previous attacks in the country, including one in which a car bomb on the resort island of Bali in 2002 killed more than 200 people, the vast majority of them foreigners.
He identified an Indonesian citizen believed to be in Syria as the organizer. The suspect, Bahrun Naim, is a leader of Katibah Nusantara, a Southeast Asian-based military unit under the Islamic State, General Karnavian said. Indonesia is the world’s most populous Muslim-majority country, with a tradition of tolerance toward other religions. A tiny fraction of the population is radicalized, analysts say, but in recent years, the country has grappled with rising tensions between moderates and hard-line groups, some of them peaceful and others militant, promoting what they say is a purer interpretation of Islam.
In April 2015, Katibah Nusantara fighters captured territory held by Kurdish forces in Syria, which was a boon for its online drive to recruit new fighters and supporters among Malay speakers in Southeast Asia, according to a research paper published last year by the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore. Militants inside Indonesia have often targeted churches, Buddhist temples, Western embassies, businesses and tourists – the very symbols of the country’s openness and plurality. Thursday’s attack was the first major one in Jakarta since the twin bombings of two hotels in 2009.
“The growing reach of Katibah Nusantara could lead to its expanding influence in Islamic State’s decision-making process, in turn leading I.S. giving greater priority to Southeast Asia as its war zone,” according to the paper. Mr. Bahrun served a prison sentence in West Java Province in Indonesia in 2012 for illegal possession of firearms and explosives, and he is identified as the author of a recent blog post praising the November terrorist attacks in Paris and their high death toll. The post, titled “Lessons from the Paris Attacks,” urged his fellow Indonesians “to study the planning, targeting, timing, coordination, security and courage of the Paris teams,” according to an article by Ms. Jones, the terrorism expert.
The police appear to have been aware of Mr. Bahrun for some time. He served a prison sentence in West Java Province in Indonesia in 2012 for illegal possession of firearms and explosives, and he is named as the author of a recent blog post praising the November terrorist attacks in Paris and their high death toll. In April 2015, Katibah Nusantara fighters captured territory held by Kurdish forces in Syria, a boon for its online drive to recruit new fighters and supporters among Malay speakers in Southeast Asia, according to research paper published last year by the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore. “The growing reach of Katibah Nusantara could lead to its expanding influence in Islamic State’s decision-making process, in turn leading I.S. giving greater priority to Southeast Asia as its war zone,” the researches said.
The post, titled “Lessons From the Paris Attacks,” urged his fellow Indonesians “to study the planning, targeting, timing, coordination, security and courage of the Paris teams,” according to an article by Sidney Jones, an expert on terrorism in Indonesia, published in November. The two civilians killed in the attack on Thursday were a Canadian and an Indonesian, President Joko Widodo’s cabinet secretary, Pramono Anung, said at a news conference. Canada’s foreign affairs ministry did not immediately confirm whether a Canadian citizen had died.
In an interview, Ms. Jones said there had been “a spike of planning for violence in Indonesia” over the past six months. At least 16 terrorism suspects have been arrested in Indonesia in the past month alone, and the police said they had received information in late November warning that the Islamic State was planning “a concert” in Indonesia, meaning an attack. A Dutch man, an expert in forestry and ecosystems management for the United Nations, was seriously wounded and was being treated at a hospital, a spokesman for the Dutch Embassy in Jakarta said. The United Nations declined to identify the man, but said he was “currently fighting for his life.”
One of the two civilians killed in the attack on Thursday was Canadian, and the other was Indonesian, President Joko Widodo’s cabinet secretary, Pramono Anung, said at a news conference with the head of the Indonesian armed forces, Gen. Gatot Nurmantyo, hours after the violence. The police department’s public relations division said in a post on its official Facebook page that 23 people had been treated for injuries, including five members of the police, four foreigners and 14 other civilians.
The Police Department’s public relations division said in a post on its official Facebook page that 23 people had been treated for injuries, including five members of the police, four foreigners and 14 other civilians. The militants initially targeted the police traffic post on Jalan Thamrin, one of Jakarta’s main thoroughfares. Video showed a series of blasts in a parking lot across the street from the post, just yards from the front doors of a Starbucks coffee shop and a Burger King restaurant. Video aired on local television appeared to show two of the attackers blowing themselves up near the Starbucks.
The attack initially appeared to target a traffic police post at a major intersection, which was heavily damaged by explosions. Video showed a series of blasts in a parking lot across the street from the police post, just yards from the front doors of a Starbucks coffee shop and a Burger King restaurant. Video aired on local television appeared to show two of the attackers blowing themselves up near the Starbucks. At least one assailant fired at the police post. Security forces stormed the area, and the police later said they had arrested four suspects.
At least one assailant fired at the police post. 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. The United States Embassy in Jakarta issued an emergency message telling Americans to avoid the area. Indonesia’s violent Islamists are made up of at least three overlapping pro-Islamic State groups, including Ansharut Daulah Islamiyah, a sort of umbrella group that claims to be the main Islamic State structure in Indonesia; Mujahidin of Eastern Indonesia, based in Poso, on the island of Sulawesi, whose commander, Santoso, leads a band of about 30 armed men including several ethnic Uighurs; and a group based in central Java that is believed to take instructions directly from an Indonesian fighter for the Islamic State in Syria.
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 Jakarta offices. The country is also home to Jemaah Islamiyah, a group that has been blamed for a number of deadly attacks in Indonesia, according to Ms. Jones. It supports the Qaeda affiliate in Syria, the Nusra Front, and not the Islamic State. Though the group is rebuilding, it does not appear for the moment to be interested in violence in Indonesia, she said.
“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.” The most severe attacks by Islamic militants occurred on Bali in 2002 and again in 2005, when 25 people were killed.
Mr. 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. He added that he had heard a total of five explosions. In 2003, an attack on a in Jakarta left 12 people dead. The hotel was struck again in 2009, nearly simultaneously with the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Jakarta, and eight people were killed.
A Dutch man was wounded in the attack and was being treated at a hospital, a spokesman for the Dutch Embassy in Jakarta said. “There is a Dutch victim, but we don’t know his status,” the spokesman, Nico Schermers, of the Netherlands Embassy in Jakarta, said by telephone. Yohanes Sulaiman, a political analyst, said Indonesia’s government had not done enough to contain Islamist radicals in recent years. He said the police had “done a good job in preventing such attacks, considering that Indonesia is kind of a messy place. What the government hasn’t been doing is to stop the radicalism.”
Mr. Schermers, who declined to identify the man, said that bystanders and people who knew the man had informed the embassy that he had been wounded. He added that the embassy was in the process of contacting his family. Indonesian extremists are known to have trained and fought in Afghanistan in the 1980s and ’90s, in the southern Philippines, possibly in Bosnia and now in Syria.
President Joko called the assaults “acts of terror” in a televised statement on Thursday. “Our nation and our people should not be afraid,” Mr. Joko said. “We will not be defeated by these acts of terror. I hope the public stays calm.” Thursday’s attack took place just yards from Plaza Sarinah, a shopping mall that was one of the few landmarks President Obama recognized as his motorcade rolled through Jakarta, where he lived as a child, during his 2010 state visit to Indonesia.
“We all are grieving for the fallen victims of this incident, but we also condemn the act that has disturbed the security and peace and spread terror among our people,” he said. Numerous high-rise buildings, including offices occupied by the United Nations, lie within yards of the police post, as well as several four- and five-star hotels and Tanah Abang, Southeast Asia’s largest traditional textiles market. The United States Embassy is a little over half a mile from the attack site, which is also near Indonesia’s National Monument and the presidential palace complex.
Mr. Joko later visited the scene of the attacks.
Yohanes Sulaiman, an Indonesian political analyst, said Indonesia’s government had not done enough to contain Islamist radicals in recent years. He said the police had “done a good job in preventing such attacks, considering that Indonesia is kind of a messy place. What the government hasn’t been doing is to stop the radicalism.”
As of last year, at least 300 Indonesians had joined the thousands of foreign fighters who have traveled to Syria to help extremist groups trying to create an Islamic state there, according to Ms. Jones, director of the Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict, a research institute based in Jakarta.
Indonesian extremists are known to have trained and fought in Afghanistan in the 1980s and ’90s, in the southern Philippines and possibly in Bosnia. The involvement of Indonesian fighters in Syria became more prominent after an extremist from Borneo named Riza Fardi was killed there last year, the institute said.
Ken Conboy, who works for an Indonesian security company and wrote a book about Jemaah Islamiyah, the Southeast Asian terrorist group that was linked to Al Qaeda, speculated that the attacks were connected to recent arrests of terrorism suspects on Java, the Indonesian island that includes Jakarta.
“All the people arrested in recent weeks were all linked to each other. The arrests kept on snowballing,” Mr. Conboy said. “They were supposedly planning attacks on police stations, Shiite Muslim communities and maybe the national Police Headquarters” in Jakarta.
Rohan Gunaratna, an expert on Asian terrorist networks at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, said he had interviewed several detainees in police custody in Indonesia in late December after the police disrupted two cells that had been planning attacks.
He said the detainees said they had been planning assaults on the police in Jakarta and wanted to “create chaos.”
Among the detainees were Indonesian citizens and several Uighurs, an ethnic Turkic group from the northwestern Xinjiang region of China, Mr. Gunaratna said.
The attack took place just yards from Plaza Sarinah, the city’s oldest modern shopping mall. The mall is one of the few landmarks President Obama recognized as his motorcade rolled through Jakarta during his 2010 state visit to the capital, where he lived as a child.
Numerous high-rise buildings, including offices occupied by the United Nations, lie within yards of the police post that was the apparent target of the attack, as well as several four- and five-star hotels and Tanah Abang, Southeast Asia’s largest traditional textiles market. The United States Embassy is a little over half a mile from the attack site, which is also near Indonesia’s National Monument and the presidential palace complex.