Starbucks assassins
Paris-style terrorists open fire on customers running into the street after IS suicide bomber blows himself up in Jakarta cafe
SCREAMING shoppers fled in terror yesterday as Islamic State fanatics launched a Paris-style rampage in Indonesia.
The co-ordinated attacks began at around midday when a suicide bomber detonated his vest inside a Starbucks cafe in a part of central Jakarta that houses a number of embassies and is popular with westerners.
When customers ran out into the street two gunmen outside opened fire, killing a Canadian citizen trying to hide behind a car. Two suicide bombers then attacked a
‘Follow it up with a larger explosion’
traffic police booth nearby, killing themselves and an Indonesian man.
Meanwhile the Starbucks gunmen prowled the streets outside a shopping mall before throwing grenades at a group of police officers near a United Nations building. A 15-minute exchange of fire ended with both attackers dead. It was five hours after the first explosion before police announced that the area was secure after finding a large, undetonated bomb and five smaller devices in a building near the Starbucks cafe.
Police spokesman Major General Anton Charilyan said: ‘We think their plan was to attack people and follow it up with a larger explosion when more people gathered. But thank God it didn’t happen.’
Last night the death toll was seven – five attackers plus their Canadian and Indonesian victims. At least 20 people were also injured in an assault that police said ‘imitated’ the Paris terror attacks.
Major General Charilyan said: ‘We have identified all attackers. We can say they were affiliated with the Islamic State group.’
Earlier this week Islamic State told jihadists who wanted to carry out attacks to blend in with the local population and ‘not look like a Muslim’.
A picture of yesterday’s attack in progress showed a gunman wearing new blue trainers, jeans, a Nike cap and a rucksack. Photographs emerged in the aftermath showing a cache of weapons found in a jihadist’s rucksack which were laid out by police on a blanket next to the body of an attacker.
Anti-terrorism experts in Jakarta had warned that a full-scale operation was being planned to hit tourists and western companies over Christmas. But it never happened and a high state of alert was relaxed, resulting in anti-terror teams in Jakarta being caught unawares when the terrorists on motorbikes and on foot targeted the Starbucks and a Burger King restaurant. Police believe the goahead came from Islamic State leaders in Syria.
Jeremy Douglas, a UN official who works in the organisation’s building near the scene, told NBC news: ‘You could hear a gun fight in the street. There were a lot of panicked people running towards our building.’
Police said the attackers were part of a group led by Bahrum Naim, an Indonesian militant who is now in Syria. Islamic State backers circulated a claim of responsibility online.
Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said: ‘The UK utterly condemns these senseless acts of violence. We will continue to provide support and assistance to the government of Indonesia as they work to defeat those who plan and perpetrate these acts of terror.’
It was the first major attack in Jakarta since the 2009 bombings of two hotels that killed seven people and injured more than 50.