IS-linked suicide attackers strike in Jakarta, 7 killed

Five extremists launched an assault copying “the pattern of the Paris attacks” as they detonated explosives and shot at people in a district packed with malls, embassies and United Nations offices.

The assault also left an Indonesian man dead and 19 other people injured, and a police post destroyed, in what the country’s president dubbed “acts of terror”.

“There is a strong suspicion that this is an ISIS-linked group in Indonesia,” national police spokesman Anton Charliyan said,referring to the Islamic State group by an alternative name.

“From what we see today, this group is following the pattern of the Paris attacks.” IS gunmen killed 130 people in a series of coordinated attacks on the French capital in November.

Police chief Charliyan said the five-strong cell who struck on Thursday included three suicide bombers who initially targeted a Starbucks opposite a major shopping mall.

After the first explosion, two men armed with pistols took two men hostage. He identified them as an Algerian and a Dutch national, however Jakarta police chief Tito Karnavian said the second man was Canadian.

Charliyan said the Algerian managed to escape with bullet wounds, but the second man was shot dead on the spot and that an Indonesian man who had tried to help the hostages was also shot and killed.

“Soon afterwards, two men riding.... motorbikes, ran into a police post and blew themselves up,” he said, adding four officers had been left in a critical condition.

Witnesses said the gunman who emerged from Starbucks began firing at bystanders, reloading his weapon as security forces moved in behind the cover of moving vehicles.

Graphic photographs from the scene showed the bloodied bodies of what appeared to be two men in civilian clothes lying by the side of a road next to the wrecked police post.

Indonesian President Joko Widodo urged people to remain calm. “Our nation and our people should not be afraid, we will not be defeated by these acts of terror,” he said, in comments broadcast by MetroTV.

“We also condemn the act that has disturbed the security and peace and spread terror among our people.” 

National police spokesman Charliyan said the group had issued a cryptic warning in the lead-up to the attack.

“The warning said there will be a concert in Indonesia and it will be international news,” he said.