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Jakarta bombers suspected of having IS links

JAKARTA — The two suicide bombers who set off a blast that killed three police officers at a Jakarta bus station on Wednesday night are linked to the Islamic State (IS) militant group, Indonesian police said yesterday.

JAKARTA — The two suicide bombers who set off a blast that killed three police officers at a Jakarta bus station on Wednesday night are linked to the Islamic State (IS) militant group, Indonesian police said yesterday.

“There’s a link, but we’re still studying whether it’s an international network,” said National Police spokesman Awi Setyono, who told reporters earlier that police are investigating whether the attackers had direct orders from Syria or elsewhere.

The police have identified the bombers as Ichwan Nurul Salam and Ahmad Sukri, both aged 32 and from West Java province, said Colonel Arif Makhfudiharto, chief of the West Java anti-terror squad.

“Police have taken their relatives for questioning and DNA tests,’’ said Col Makhfudiharto.

Six police officers and six civilians were also wounded in the twin blasts that were detonated five minutes apart by the two bombers. Police said an anti-terror squad subsequently raided two houses believed to be owned by the perpetrators in neighbouring provinces of Banten and West Java.

President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo said he ordered police to “thoroughly investigate the networks of the perpetrators and hunt them to the roots”.

Speaking on national television from his hometown of Solo in Central Java province, he also urged his countrymen to “keep calm and cool ... because ... we Muslims are preparing to enter the month of Ramadan for fasting”.

The police said one the two explosions was at a bus shelter while another went off near a parking lot about 10m away. Initial investigations indicated the bombs were made out of pressure cookers and were carried in backpacks.

The police added that nails, buckshot and aluminium flakes found at the scene indicated that the bombs were similar to a pressure cooker bomb used in Bandung in February by a lone attacker who was killed by police.

“There were similarities,” Mr Setyono said, “only yesterday’s (attack) had been more perfected.”

The police had identified the militant involved in the February incident as a member of Jemaah Anshorut Daulah (JAD), a network of almost two dozen Indonesian extremist groups that was formed in 2015 and pledges allegiance to Islamic State group leader Abu Bakr Baghdadi.

JAD has been linked to numerous plots in Indonesia, including the attack in Jakarta last year in which eight people were killed, including the four perpetrators.

In the wake of Wednesday’s bombings, Indonesians took to Twitter to express shock and sympathy for the victims, using the hashtags #PrayForJakarta and #KamiTidakTakut (“We Are Not Afraid”) .

“This is Indonesia, home for all of us #FailedTerror #WeAreNotAfraid,” the Indonesian Air Force tweeted.

In a press statement yesterday, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) said that Singapore strongly condemned the bombings and that there have been no reports of Singaporeans directly affected or injured in the incident so far.

President Tony Tan and Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong yesterday wrote to President Widodo to convey their condolences.

Analysts contacted by TODAY believe that the Jakarta attack was unlikely to be inspired by the Manchester blast on Monday that killed more than 20 people and injured about 120 others at a pop concert.

“Terror attacks, even the clumsy ones, take a fairly long time to plan and execute,” said terrorism expert Sidney Jones.

“The Jakarta attack was more likely timed to coincide with the beginning of Ramadan,” noted Ms Jones, who is the director of the Jakarta-based Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict.

The Muslim fasting month of Ramadan begins today, and the IS has declared this month as one to “wage holy war”, Professor Rohan Gunaratna of the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS) told TODAY.

The Jakarta blasts, as well as recent Islamic State advances in the Philippine city of Marawi, were believed to be carried out to prepare jihadists for a “sustained campaign during the holy month”, he added.

Going forward, terrorism analyst Jasminder Singh, who is with RSIS, urged caution as extremist groups in different parts of the world seem to be competing with one another to cause mayhem.

“While security agencies in the region have done well in curbing militancy, they need to be vigilant as we will never know where and when the next strike will take place,” he said. AGENCIES, WITH ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY BEN HO

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