Indonesia must strengthen its defenses against Islamic State and work with neighboring countries to fight it, Jakarta's police chief said on Friday, January 15, a day after an attack by suicide bombers and gunmen in the heart of the Southeast Asian nation's capital, Reuters reports.
Just seven people were killed in the three-hour siege near a busy shopping district despite multiple blasts and a gunfight, and five of them were the attackers themselves.
Nevertheless, it was the first time the radical group has targeted the world's most populous Muslim nation, and the brazenness of the attack suggested a new brand of militancy in a country where low-level strikes on police are common.
Police chiefs across the country were put 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.
"We need to pay very serious attention to the rise of ISIS," Jakarta police chief Tito Karnavian told reporters outside the city's oldest department store, Sarinah, where the attack unfolded on Thursday.
"We need to strengthen our response and preventive measures, including legislation to prevent them … and we hope our counterparts in other countries can work together because it is not home-grown terrorism, it is part of the ISIS network," he said, using a common acronym for the Syria-based group.
Luhut Pandjaitan, Indonesia's chief security minister, told reporters his office was working with parliament to make changes to legislation that would allow preemptive arrests.
Experts agree that there is a growing threat from radicalized Muslims inspired by Islamic State, some of whom may have fought with the group in Syria. However, they said the low death toll on Thursday pointed to the involvement of poorly trained local militants whose weapons were crude.
