JAKARTA, Jan 15 : Indonesian police killed one suspected militant and arrested two more in raids across the country on Friday, a day after an attack by Islamic State suicide bombers and gunmen in the heart of the Southeast Asian nation's capital.
Police have identified four out of five of the Jakarta attackers. Two were previously convicted militants. Police named one - Afif Sunakim, seen carrying a gun and rucksack during the attacks. He was given a seven-year jail term for attending a militant camp.
All five died in Thursday's attacks, which left two civilians dead and were claimed by Islamic State (IS). Three arrests were made on Friday but it is unclear if they are connected. Security forces battled militants for hours in the busy commercial district where the militants struck. A Canadian and an Indonesian national died, and at least 20 people were injured. The assault ended when two attackers died in a suicide bombing, police say, with the other three killed in gun battles.
Following recent IS threats, the country, which had been attacked by Islamist militants several times in the past, had been on high alert. IS released a statement saying it had targeted citizens of countries which are part of the international coalition fighting the group, which controls parts of Syria and Iraq. Some 1,000 people linked to radical networks had been brought to justice in Indonesia since 2000, he said, but some had since been released from prison and had "the potential to pose a threat". "What we need to do today is strengthen capability and also sharing information with others because it is not home grown in Indonesia but it is part of a global network," he said.
Indonesian President Joko Widodo tweeted on Friday that there was "no place for terrorism on Earth" and that "every citizen in the world" needed to fight it.
Nevertheless, it was the first time the radical group has targeted the country with the world's largest Muslim population, and the brazenness of the attack suggested a new brand of militancy in a country more used to low-level strikes on police. Police chiefs across the country were on high alert, some embassies in Jakarta were closed for the day and security was stepped up on the resort island of Bali, a draw for tourists from Australia and other Asian countries.     ?REUTERS, BBC