JAKARTA — Indonesia blamed Daesh (so-called IS) for an attack by suicide bombers and gunmen in the heart of Jakarta on Thursday that brought the radical group's violence to the world's most populous Muslim country for the first time. Just seven people were killed despite multiple blasts and a gunfight, and five of them were the attackers themselves, but the brazenness of their siege suggested a new brand of militancy in a country where low-level strikes on police are common.
It took security forces about three hours to end the attack near a Starbucks cafe and Sarinah's, Jakarta's oldest department store, after a team of at least seven militants traded gunfire with police and blew themselves up. An Indonesian and a Canadian were killed in the attack and 20 people, including a Dutchman who works for the United Nations Environment Program, were wounded. Two of the militants were taken alive, police said.
"Daesh fighters carried out an armed attack this morning targeting foreign nationals and the security forces charged with protecting them in the Indonesian capital," Aamaaq news agency, which is allied to the group, said on its Telegram channel. Jakarta's police chief told reporters: "Daesh is behind this attack definitely," using a common acronym, and he named an Indonesian militant called Bahrun Naim as the man responsible for plotting it. Police believe Naim is in the Syrian city of Raqqa.
The drama played out on the streets and on television screens, with at least six explosions and a gunfight in a movie theater. But the low death toll pointed to the involvement of local militants whose weapons were rudimentary, experts said.
Jakarta police chief Tito Karnavian said one man entered the Starbucks cafe and blew himself up, wounding several inside. As people poured out of the cafe, two waiting gunmen opened fire on them. At the same time, two militants attacked a police traffic post nearby, using what he described as hand grenade-like bombs.
After the militants had been overcome, a body still lay on the street, a shoe nearby among the debris. The city center's notoriously jammed roads were largely deserted. Indonesia has seen attacks by militants before, but a coordinated assault by a team of suicide bombers and gunmen is unprecedented and has echoes of the sieges seen in Mumbai seven years ago and in Paris last November.
