Explosions and gunfire rocked the Indonesian capital city of Jakarta Thursday in an attack during broad daylight at a shopping center that the Syria-based terror group ISIS has taken credit for.
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Authorities believe 4 Indonesian men and 1 foreign national may have carried out the attack and are currently dead. They believe the ringleader was based out of Syria and funneled through Bahrun Naim, an ISIS power player looking to become a leader in Southeast Asia.
The blasts throughout a city shopping center and left 7 dead, including the 5 attackers, and over 20 injured. The low death toll has experts like Clarke Jones at Australian National University calling the attack “fairly amateurish … with hand grenades and firearms.”
This is the first attack in Jakarta since the 2009 attack join attack on the J.W. Marriott and Ritz Carleton hotels.
Here is footage of one of the explosions:
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From CNN:
Jakarta, Indonesia (CNN) Attackers struck in the middle of the day Thursday, in the middle of a busy central Jakarta commercial hub — killing at least two, wounding 19 and raising alarms about terrorism once more, this time in the world’s most populous Muslim country.
ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack in an official statement posted online by the terror organization, which was translated by the monitoring group Flashpoint and verified by CNN. Jakarta police chief Tito Karnavian likewise blamed the Syria-based group and singled out a militant named Bahrun Naim, who he said plotted the attack to assert himself among various figures competing to lead ISIS in Southeast Asia.
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