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Indonesia tightens security amid crackdowns after Jakarta attacks Indonesia tightens security amid crackdowns after Jakarta attacks
(about 13 hours later)
Security forces in Indonesia conducted raids and stepped up patrols around main tourist resorts Friday, a day after militants staged coordinated attacks believed directed from Islamic State strongholds in Syria. JAKARTA, Indonesia — An audacious attack by suicide bombers in the heart of Indonesia’s capital was funded by the Islamic State, police said Friday as they said they seized one of the group’s flags from the home of one of the attackers and carried out raids across the country, in which one suspected militant was killed.
Suicide bombings and gunfire Thursday in the capital Jakarta left two people dead and raised worries about the Islamic State seeking to expand its reach into Southeast Asia, where the vast Indonesian archipelago is the world’s most populous Muslim nation. Gen. Badrodin Haiti, the national police chief, told reporters that Islamic State funding for Thursday’s attack was funneled through an Indonesian, Bahrun Naim, who spent one year in prison for illegal possession of weapons in 2011 and is now in Syria fighting for the group.
Five attackers died in the mayhem, which police say could have been an attempt at staging a Paris-style rampage. Supporters of the militant group also circulated a claim of responsibility for the attack on Twitter late Thursday. The group controls territory in Syria and Iraq, and its ambition to create an Islamic caliphate has attracted some 30,000 foreign fighters from around the world.
[A sign of the Islamic State’s global strategy] The Islamic State link, if proved, poses a challenge to Indonesian security forces. Until now, the group was known only to have sympathizers with no active cells capable of planning and carrying out a plot such as Thursday’s, in which five men attacked a Starbucks cafe and a traffic police booth with handmade bombs, guns and suicide belts. They killed two people — a Canadian and an Indonesian — and wounded 20 in the first major attack in Indonesia since 2009. The militants were killed, either by their suicide vests or by police.
Anti-terror units launched raids Friday seeking suspected Islamic State backers and possible support networks, said a police statement. At least two people were arrested and one alleged militant was killed in a shootout with authorities, it added. The attack “was funded by ISIS in Syria through Bahrun Naim,” Haiti told reporters after Friday prayers, using an acronym for the group. He did not elaborate.
“It’s clear that the [Jakarta attackers] didn’t set this up themselves. For this, we are searching for the networks and who was involved in this action,” said national police spokesman Anton Charliyan, according to the Reuters news agency. He also identified one of the five attackers as Afif Sunakim, who in 2010 was sentenced to seven years in jail for his involvement in military-style training in Aceh, but was released early.
Police also boosted watch over embassies, hotels and resorts including the popular beachfront compounds in Bali, where Islamists militants staged attacks in 2002 at nightclubs that killed 202 people, mostly foreigners. Police conducted raids across Indonesia, but was it unclear whether those arrested were suspected of links to the bombing or if police were rounding up militants as part of a broader crackdown in its aftermath. They also outlined a partial reconstruction of events based on security camera video, part of which showed a Starbucks customer escaping from the grip of an attacker before he detonated his suicide bomb.
[Timeline of attacks in Indonesia] Maj. Gen. Anton Charliyan, a national police spokesman, said raids were conducted in Java, Kalimantan and Sulawesi, with four arrests made. Charliyan said three men arrested in Depok on the outskirts of Jakarta are no longer suspected of being linked to the attack. On Friday evening, police searched the home of another of the dead bombers, whom they identified as Muhammad Ali (no relation to the former professional boxer).
In nearby nations, including Malaysia and the Philippines, officials tightened security around other sites such as malls and office parks.
A message purportedly from the Islamic State claimed responsibility for the Jakarta attacks, and Indonesian authorities quickly identified a fugitive militant, Bahrun Naim, as the alleged mastermind.
Naim has fled in Indonesia and is believed to be in the Islamic State’s main base in Syria, the city of Raqqa.
Indonesia has been on high alert for weeks after officials warned of a “credible threat” of attacks over the New Year’s holiday.
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