Tag Archives: Indonesia

Indonesia begins re-vaccinating victims of fake drug ring

A child who received fake medication from a drug-making ring is revaccinated by government health care workers at a clinic in East Jakarta, Indonesia

By Randy Fabi and Agustinus Beo Da Costa

JAKARTA (Reuters) – Indonesia on Monday began re-vaccinating nearly 200 children who received fake versions of imported inoculations from a drug-counterfeiting ring broken up last month after operating for more than a decade.

President Joko Widodo urged calm as public uproar intensified over revelations that health officials knew about the syndicate producing the fake vaccines for several years but did little to stop it.

The scandal has exposed major weaknesses in the oversight of the health sector, which has expanded rapidly alongside a growing middle class.

No illnesses or deaths have been directly linked to the fake vaccines, officials have said.

“I want to ask people to stay calm because this incident happened over such a long time,” Widodo told reporters at a Jakarta clinic offering re-vaccinations.

“We need more time to investigate so we can get the real data of people who suffered from these fake vaccines.”

The ring used stolen vials and forged labels to make the fake medicine look like imported vaccines produced by GlaxoSmithKline and Sanofi. State-owned Bio Farma produces nearly all vaccines available in Indonesia.

At least 28 health care facilities throughout the country, including Jakarta and the tourist resort island of Bali, were suspected of buying fake booster vaccines for hepatitis B, diphtheria, tetanus and whooping cough.

Health officials said the sham vaccines contained the antibiotic gentamicin and saline solution and were not harmful and made up only 1 percent of total vaccines in Indonesia.

Investigators are trying to determine how widely the fake drugs were distributed.

Police have arrested nearly two dozen people, including drugmakers, pharmacists, doctors and nurses.

Police have identified at least 197 children for re-vaccination, but many more are expected to be confirmed.

Health Minister Nila Moeloek told Reuters officials knew fake vaccines were being distributed in 2013 but she declined to say why action was not taken sooner. The president has ordered an overhaul of the food and drug monitoring agency.

One mother, Rina Herlina Sari, told Reuters she no longer trusted private clinics.

“The government should revoke their permits,” she said.

Reuters reporters visited the clinic accused of giving Sari’s daughter, and other children, fake vaccines, and found it operating. Its main midwife had been arrested but other staff were working.

“The overall facility is a health facility with other areas of care so we have to allow it to continue,” Agung Setya, director of criminal police investigations, told Reuters.

“It is up to the health ministry to decide whether to shut it down.”

(Additional reporting by Kanupriya Kapoor; Editing by Robert Birsel and Nick Macfie)

U.S. launches quiet diplomacy to ease South China Sea tensions

A ship of Chinese Coast Guard is seen near a ship of Vietnam Marine Guard in the South China Sea

By Lesley Wroughton and John Walcott

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States is using quiet diplomacy to persuade the Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam and other Asian nations not to move aggressively to capitalize on an international court ruling that denied China’s claims to the South China Sea, several U.S. administration officials said on Wednesday.

“What we want is to quiet things down so these issues can be addressed rationally instead of emotionally,” said one official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private diplomatic messages.

Some were sent through U.S. embassies abroad and foreign missions in Washington, while others were conveyed directly to top officials by Defense Secretary Ash Carter, Secretary of State John Kerry and other senior officials, the sources said.

“This is a blanket call for quiet, not some attempt to rally the region against China, which would play into a false narrative that the U.S. is leading a coalition to contain China,” the official added.

The effort to calm the waters following the court ruling in The Hague on Tuesday suffered a setback when Taiwan dispatched a warship to the area, with President Tsai Ing-wen telling sailors that their mission was to defend Taiwan’s maritime territory.

The court ruled that while China has no historic rights to the area within its self-declared nine-dash line, Taiwan has no right to Itu Aba, also called Taiping, the largest island in the Spratlys. Taipei administers Itu Aba but the tribunal called it a “rock”, according to the legal definition.

The U.S. officials said they hoped the U.S. diplomatic initiative would be more successful in Indonesia, which wants to send hundreds of fishermen to the Natuna Islands to assert its sovereignty over nearby areas of the South China Sea to which China says it also has claims, and in the Philippines, whose fishermen have been harassed by Chinese coast guard and naval vessels.

‘UNKNOWN QUANTITY’

One official said new Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte remains “somewhat of an unknown quantity” who has been alternately bellicose and accommodating toward China.

Philippine Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said that ahead of the ruling he had spoken to Carter, who he said told him China had assured the United States it would exercise restraint, and that the U.S. government made the same assurance.

Carter had sought and been given the same assurance from the Philippines, Lorenzana added.

China, for its part, repeated pleas for talks between Beijing and Manila, with Foreign Minister Wang Yi saying the it is time to get things back on the “right track” after the “farce” of the case.

On Thursday, the official newspaper of China’s ruling Communist Party said China had shown it can fix territorial issues via talks, pointing to agreement reached with Vietnam over their maritime boundary in the Gulf of Tonkin and ongoing talks with South Korea.

“China is a faithful defender of the principle that countries large and small are equal and has consistently upheld using consultations to resolve border issues on the basis of sovereign equality and mutual respect,” the People’s Daily said in a commentary.

Meanwhile, two Chinese civilian aircraft landed on Wednesday at two new airports on reefs controlled by China in the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea, a move the State Department said would increase tensions rather than lower them.

“We don’t have a dog in this fight other than our belief … in freedom of navigation,” State Department spokesman Mark Toner told a briefing on Wednesday. “What we want to see in this very tense part of Asia, of the Pacific, rather, is a de-escalation of tensions and we want to see all claimants take a moment to look at how we can find a peaceful way forward.”

CONTINGENCY PLANHowever, if that effort fails, and competition escalates into confrontation, U.S. air and naval forces are prepared to uphold freedom of maritime and air navigation in the disputed area, a defense official said on Wednesday.

Democrat Ben Cardin of Maryland, a senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said confrontation is less likely if the Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam and other countries work with the United States rather than on their own.

“I don’t think China wants a confrontation with the United States,” he told reporters. “They don’t mind a confrontation with a Vietnamese fishing boat, but they don’t want a confrontation with the United States.”

The court ruling is expected to dominate a meeting at the end of July in Laos of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), which includes the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Myanmar, Vietnam and Thailand.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, and his Chinese counterpart, Foreign Minister Wang, will attend the ministerial.

Sino-American relations suffered two fresh blows on Wednesday as a congressional committee found China’s government likely hacked computers at the U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the United States challenged China’s export duties on nine metals and minerals that are important to the aerospace, auto, electronics and chemical industries.

(Additional reporting by Patricia Zengerle and Yara Bayoumy, and Ben Blanchard in Beijing; Editing by Kieran Murray, Grant McCool and Lincoln Feast)

Indonesia says 44 migrants must sail on after being resupplied

Sri Lankan immigrants are pictured on their boat after being stranded at Pulo Kapuk beach in Lhoknga, Aceh province

JAKARTA (Reuters) – Indonesian authorities have stopped 44 migrants believed to be from Sri Lanka from disembarking from their boat and said on Friday the vessel had to head back out to sea after being supplied with food and fuel and repaired.

Indonesia has for years been a stepping stone for refugees and migrants from the Middle East and South Asia hoping to reach Australia. Australia has been urging it to act to stop the flow of people, often traveling in unseaworthy boats.

The boat carrying the 44 people, including several women and children, was found stranded off the coast of the northern Indonesian province of Aceh last week.

“We fixed their boat and gave them the food and fuel they asked for. We also did health checks and we see their condition is good,” provincial governor Zaini Abdullah told media.

“They can be on their way. We are waiting for high tide … Don’t look at it as if we are pushing them out or ejecting them. We have fulfilled the humanitarian obligations.”

It was not clear if the people on board the boat wanted to land in Indonesia or sail on but activists said they should have been given access to the U.N. refugee agency.

Even though Indonesia is seen as a transit country on the way to Australia, many migrants end up staying there for years.

More than 1,000 migrants from Myanmar and Bangladesh landed in Aceh last year after spending days on overcrowded boats, adrift in the Andaman Sea.

 

(Reporting by Angie Teo and Kanupriya Kapoor; Writing by Kanupriya Kapoor; Editing by Robert Birsel)

Pakistan, Indonesia lead in malware attacks

An illustration picture shows a projection of text on the face of a woman in Berlin

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Pakistan, Indonesia, the Palestinian territories, Bangladesh, and Nepal attract the highest rates of attempted malware attacks, according to Microsoft Corp.

Countries that attracted the fewest include Japan, Finland, Norway and Sweden, Microsoft said in a new study, based on sensors in systems running Microsoft anti-malware software.

“We look at north of 10 million attacks on identities every day,” said Microsoft manager Alex Weinert, although attacks do not always succeed.

About half of all attacks originate in Asia and one-fifth in Latin America.

Millions occur each year when the attacker has valid credentials, Microsoft said, meaning the attacker knows a user’s login and password. A technology known as machine learning can often detect those attacks by looking for data points such as whether the location of the user is familiar.

On average, 240 days elapse between a security breach in a computer system and detection of that breach, said Tim Rains, director of security at Microsoft. The study, Microsoft Security Intelligence report, comes out Thursday.

(This story corrects headline to Indonesia, not India)

(Reporting by Sarah McBride; Editing by David Gregorio)

Activists raise concerns over Indonesia’s proposed anti-terrorism law

JAKARTA (Reuters) – Rights activists on Friday called on Indonesia’s parliament to reject government proposals designed to tighten the country’s anti-terrorism laws.

The revisions to the law, proposed in the wake of a militant attack in the capital Jakarta in January, include detention without trial for up to three months and allow the arrest of people “if they assemble to discuss terrorist and radical acts”.

International Commission of Jurists and other rights groups said in a joint statement that the proposed amendments are “an attack on human rights”.

“The proposed amendments would authorize unnecessarily prolonged detention of suspects, putting them at risk of torture, ill-treatment, enforced disappearance, and arbitrary detention,” said the statement.

Other rights NGOs raised concerns over a proposal to strip Indonesians of citizenship if they join overseas militant organization, arguing such a move would leave people stateless.

Government officials were not immediately available for comment.

The legislation is pending parliamentary approval and government officials have urged MPs to pass revisions as soon as possible, citing a persistent security threat from militants in the world’s most populous Muslim nation.

January’s attack in Jakarta, which killed eight people including four attackers, announced the arrival of Islamic State in Southeast Asia. Since then, Indonesian police have rounded up dozens of suspected militants across the island of Java island.

Earlier this week, Indonesian anti-terror forces killed two ethnic Uighur Chinese men on Sulawesi island where they had joined the country’s most high-profile Islamic State supporter.

Indonesia’s proposed counter-terrorism measures are not as harsh as those in neighboring countries.

Malaysia last April reintroduced a law under which individuals can be detained without trial for up to two years with two-year extensions thereafter.

Australia has in recent years passed measures banning its citizens from returning from conflict zones in Syria and the Middle East, while making it easier to monitor domestic communications.

(Reporting by Kanupriya Kapoor; Editing by Michael Perry)

Huge quake strikes off Indonesia but tsunami warnings canceled

By Kanupriya Kapoor and Eveline Danubrata

JAKARTA (Reuters) – A massive quake struck on Wednesday off the Indonesian island of Sumatra, a region devastated by the 2004 Indian Ocean quake and tsunami, but initial fears of another region-wide disaster faded as tsunami warnings were canceled.

Indonesian and Australian authorities called off their tsunami alerts within two hours of the 7.8 magnitude tremor, though it was still unclear if the quake had destroyed any buildings or killed people in Sumatra.

A National Search and Rescue Agency official gave an initial report of some deaths, but later withdrew those comments.

“Up until now, there is no information about deaths,” said Heronimus Guru, the agency’s deputy head of operations.

Any rescue operation will be hampered by the dark, which falls early in the tropical archipelago.

There were no immediate reports of damage, but the shallower a quake, the more dangerous it is. The U.S. Geological Survey originally put the magnitude at 8.2, revising it down to 7.8.

The epicenter was 808 km (502 miles) southwest of the coastal city of Padang. It was 24 km (15 miles) deep, it said, after first putting its depth at 10 km.

“So far there have been no reports (of damage),” Andi Eka Sakya, head of the National Meteorological Agency, told TVOne. “In Bengkulu (in southwest Sumatra) they didn’t feel it at all.”

The National Disaster Mitigation Agency said a tsunami was unlikely.

“Local governments of the city of Padang and some other areas in west Sumatra have said there was no tsunami and the warning can now be revoked,” spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said.

President Joko Widodo was staying overnight at a hotel in Medan in North Sumatra and was safe, palace officials said. A Medan resident said he did not feel the quake.

Erwin, a resident of Mentawai, a chain of islands off Sumatra, told Metro TV: “I am at the beach currently looking to see any tsunami sign with my flashlight. There’s nothing. A few minutes have passed but nothing, but many people have already evacuated to higher places.”

On Pagai, an island off the west coast of Sumatra, resident Jois Zaluchu told Reuters by phone that there were no reports of damage or casualties there.

But Kompas TV said patients at hospitals in Padang were being evacuated. A TVOne reporter said Padang residents were panicking and there were heavy traffic jams.

Indonesia, especially Aceh, was badly hit by the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004.

A 9.15-magnitude quake opened a fault line deep beneath the ocean on Dec. 26, 2004, triggering a wave as high as 17.4 meters (57 feet) that crashed ashore in more than a dozen countries to wipe some communities off the map in seconds.

The disaster killed 126,741 people in Aceh alone.

Indonesia straddles the so-called “Pacific Ring of Fire”, a highly seismically active zone, where different plates on the earth’s crust meet and create a large number of earthquakes and volcanoes.

(Additional reporting by Randy Fabi, Agustinus Beo Da Costa, Gayatri Suroyo, Cindy Silviana and Heru Aspirhanto; Writing by Nick Macfie; Editing by Clarence Fernandez and Mark Bendeich)

Indonesia plans tougher anti-terrorism laws after Jakarta attack

JAKARTA (Reuters) – Indonesia has drawn up plans for tougher anti-terrorism laws following last month’s militant attack on the capital, including detention without trial for up to three months compared with a week now, government sources told Reuters on Tuesday.

The proposals are likely to draw fire from human rights activists, who have warned against jeopardizing hard-won freedoms over nearly two decades since the end of authoritarian president Suharto’s rule.

However, officials anticipate little opposition in parliament to the legislation, which would not be as strict as counter-terrorism laws passed in recent years by neighbors Australia and Malaysia.

President Joko Widodo’s government moved quickly to reform the country’s 2003 anti-terrorism law after Jan. 14, when four men attacked Jakarta’s business district with guns and explosives. Islamic State claimed responsibility for the assault, in which the militants and four others died.

Details of the overhaul have been kept confidential, but two government sources with direct knowledge of the draft law said it would broaden the definition of terrorism and make it easier to both arrest and detain suspects.

The sources declined to be named because the legislation, which could be passed within the next few months, is still under consideration by parliament, where Widodo enjoys strong cross-party support.

“The new definition of terrorism includes the possession, distribution and trade of any weapons … or potential material that can be used as weapons for terrorism acts,” said one.

EVIDENCE IN COURT

The maximum period allowed for detention without trial will be lifted to 90 days and for preventive detention to 120 days, both from a current limit of one week.

The law will also allow authorities to target anyone who recruits members for, or cooperates with a militant group, and to use electronic communications, intelligence reports and financial transactions as evidence in court against suspects.

Indonesians who have joined militant training or participated in terrorist acts in a foreign country will be stripped of their citizenship.

Security officials say about 500 Indonesians have traveled to Syria and Iraq to join the radical group Islamic State and they estimate that about one in five of these has returned, although most did not see frontline combat.

Over the past two months, Indonesian counter-terrorism forces have arrested dozens of men suspected of plotting attacks on government targets and major landmarks, and last week seven men were jailed for being sympathizers of Islamic State.

But police have long complained that even when they are aware of radical activities, they are unable to detain known militants unless they threaten or actually carry out an attack.

The new law will allow the arrest of people merely “if they assemble to discuss terrorist and radical acts”.

The International Commission of Jurists last month urged the government not to undermine the process of justice by making it easier for authorities to arrest people irrespective of whether there is sufficient evidence of criminal activity.

OTHERS ARE MORE STRICT

Elsewhere in the region, counter-terrorism measures have been more far-reaching.

Malaysia last April reintroduced a law under which individuals can be detained without trial for up to two years with two-year extensions thereafter.

Australia has in recent years passed measures banning its citizens from returning from conflict zones in Syria and the Middle East, while making it easier to monitor domestic communications.

Indonesia has the world’s largest population of Muslims and the vast majority of its 250 million people practise a moderate form of Islam.

However, the Southeast Asian country saw a spate of attacks in the 2000s, the deadliest of which was a nightclub bombing on the resort island of Bali that killed 202 people.

Police have been largely successful in destroying domestic militant cells since then, but officials have grown increasingly concerned about a resurgence inspired by Islamic State and officials say homegrown radicals are regrouping.

Security experts say one problem is that high-security prisons have become breeding grounds for militants, with radical clerics being able to preach and communicate with followers from behind bars.

The government sources said one of the legislative changes proposed involves segregating prisoners convicted of terrorism from other inmates to minimize radicalization in prisons.

Terrorism convicts will also be separated into three categories: masterminds or those involved in planning attacks, those involved in executing plans, and followers.

(Writing by Kanupriya Kapoor; Editing by John Chalmers and Mike Collett-White)

Indonesia looks to stop militants overseas from returning home, planning attacks

JAKARTA (Reuters) – Indonesian President Joko Widodo is considering a regulation that would prohibit Indonesians from joining radical groups overseas, in an effort to prevent a deadlier attack than last week’s militant assault on Jakarta.

At a meeting on Tuesday at the palace, top political and security officials agreed to review anti-terrorism laws, which currently allow Indonesians to freely return home after fighting with Islamic State in Syria.

Security forces fear that returning jihadis could launch a much more calculated attack than the amateurish assault militants launched on Thursday using two pistols and eleven low-yield homemade bombs. Eight people were killed in the attack, including the four attackers.

“We’ve agreed to review the terrorism law to focus on prevention,” parliamentary speaker Zulkifli Hasan told Reuters.

“Currently there is nothing in the law covering training. There is also nothing currently covering people going overseas (to join radical groups) and returning. This needs to be broadened.”

Proposed revisions would also tighten prison sentences for terrorism offences, he said.

Chief security minister Luhut Pandjaitan told reporters the new regulation would allow suspects to be temporarily detained.

“The point is to give police the authority to preemptively and temporarily detain (a suspect) while they get information to prevent future incidents,” Pandjaitan said, adding the detention could last up to two weeks.

Widodo said discussions on the new regulation, which would be a stop-gap measure until parliament can revise its anti-terrorism law, were still at “an early stage”.

“This is very pressing. Many people have left for Syria or returned,” he said, but did not say when a decision would be made.

Roughly 500 Indonesians are believed by authorities to have traveled to the Middle East to join Islamic State. About 100 are believed to have returned, most of whom did not see frontline combat.

Indonesian Police Chief Badrodin Haiti told Reuters in an interview Monday that the country was bracing for the return of these more experienced fighters, who may be capable of carrying out far more sophisticated operations than last week’s attack, which was hampered by poor training and weapons.

Thursday’s bombings and shootings in the heart of Jakarta were the first attack in Indonesia attributed to Islamic State. The last major militant attacks in the country were in 2009, when suicide bombers struck two luxury hotels in the city.

Even if the new revisions are imposed, Indonesia would still have weaker anti-terrorism laws than some of its neighbors.

Malaysia last April passed a law reintroducing detention without trial, three years after a similar measure was revoked. Australia has in recent years passed measures banning its citizens from returning from conflict zones in Syria and the Middle East, while making it easier to monitor domestic communications.

(Additional reporting by Jakarta bureau; Editing by Randy Fabi)

Indonesian prisons a breeding ground for Islamic militancy

JAKARTA (Reuters) – Afif was an inmate in a high-security Indonesian jail when he transformed from aspiring radical Islamist to soldier for Islamic State, ready to sacrifice his life for a group based thousands of miles away in the Middle East.

His journey ended with his death last week on a busy intersection in central Jakarta, after the gun and suicide bomb attack he launched with three other militants that brought Islamic State’s brand of violence to Southeast Asia for the first time.

Afif’s graduation from jailbird to jihadi shines a light on a prison system where staff shortages, overcrowding and corruption have allowed extremists to mingle and emerge as determined killers in the name of Islam.

Security officials say Afif, also known as Sunakim, was sentenced to seven years in prison for taking part in a militant training camp in the province of Aceh, where Islam is generally practiced in a stricter form than other parts of Indonesia.

Once behind bars, he refused to follow deradicalization programs, the officials added.

Akbar Hadi, spokesman for the Ministry of Law and Human Rights, declined to comment on whether Afif’s activities were monitored after he was released last August.

Police said he planned the Jakarta siege with the three other attackers, one of whom was also a former convict. Four civilians died in the attack along with the militants.

A report by the Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict (IPAC) last year said that 26 prisons across Indonesia housed about 270 “convicted terrorists”, but Islamic State supporters accounted for only a small minority of them.

National Police Chief Badrodin Haiti told Reuters that at least five jailed militants were believed to have been in communication with the plotters in the lead-up to the attack.

COURIERS, CELL PHONES

While inside Jakarta’s Cipinang prison, Afif was one of some 20 convicts heavily influenced by fellow convict and firebrand Islamist cleric Aman Abdurrahman, experts said.

From behind bars, Abdurrahman heads an umbrella organization formed last year through an alliance of splinter groups that support Islamic State.

“They shared the same cells, they prayed together, they cooked together,” said Taufik Andrie, Jakarta-based executive director of the Institute for International Peacebuilding.

Abdurrahman regularly spread “takfiri” doctrine, a belief among Sunni militants who justify their violence by branding others as infidels, through his sermons and lectures.

Abdurrahman was moved to a maximum security prison in Nusakambangan in Central Java in 2013, but continued to communicate with Afif and a growing group of around 200 followers using couriers and cell phones.

A lawyer for Abu Bakar Ba’asyir, another high-profile radical inmate at Nusakambangan, told Reuters it is easy to convey messages to the outside world from inside prison.

“Any kind of visitor is allowed and even if they don’t exchange any cell phones, there is still an exchange of information and the visitor can interpret that,” said Achmad Michdan.

SOCIAL MEDIA A KEY TOOL

Experts say radical inmates like Abdurrahman still get away with disseminating sermons by email, Facebook, and hard copies. Despite being behind bars, Abdurrahman was able to make an online pledge of allegiance to Islamic State in 2014.

“Those with more radical thinking can also hold religious sermons on a regular basis and it is very easy to convey radical ideas to others,” said Farihin, a former militant who participated in a government deradicalization program during his time in a prison in Palu on the island of Sulawesi.

Indonesia’s counter-terrorism chief, Saud Usman Nasution, told Reuters in November that prison officials were unable to halt this type of communication because of overcrowding.

“We are aware that there is a problem with convicts being allowed to communicate using the Internet and cell phones. There is definitely room for improvement,” said Ministry of Law and Human Rights spokesman Hadi, adding that inmates cannot be forced to join deradicalization programs.

Experts say access to social media and messaging apps like Telegram is a large part of the problem.

Police believe the alleged mastermind of the Jakarta attack, an Indonesian fighting with Islamic State in Syria called Bahrun Naim, used social media to communicate his radical ideas to followers in Indonesia.

He may also have transferred thousands of dollars to accounts here, police said.

Since the attack, Indonesia has blocked websites and sent letters to social media networks Twitter, Facebook and Telegram, asking them to take down radical content.

(Additional reporting by Aubrey Belford; Editing by John Chalmers and Mike Collett-White)

Indonesia kills one militant after ISIS attack, searches for more

JAKARTA (Reuters) – 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.

Just seven people were killed in Thursday’s late-morning siege near a busy shopping district, despite multiple blasts and a gunfight, and five of the dead were the attackers themselves.

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.

“It’s clear that the (Jakarta attackers) didn’t set this up themselves. For this, we are searching for the networks and who was involved in this action,” said Anton Charliyan, national police spokesman.

Security forces killed one suspected militant in a gun battle in Central Sulawesi, while two others were arrested in the city of Cirebon in West Java.

The three were believed to be Islamic State supporters, but not directly connected to the Jakarta attack, police said.

Returning to the area outside Jakarta’s oldest department store, Sarinah, where Thursday’s attack unfolded, the city’s police chief said the rise of Islamic State was a cause for serious concern.

“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,” Tito Karnavian said, using an acronym for the Syria-based group.

In response to the Jakarta attacks, Philippine President Benigno Aquino ordered security forces to strengthen defenses of “soft” targets. Malaysia placed the country on its highest alert.

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.

An Indonesian and a man of dual Canadian-Algerian nationality were killed along with the attackers. Twenty-four people were seriously wounded, including an Austrian, a German and a Dutchman.

Islamic State said in its claim of responsibility that “a group of soldiers of the caliphate in Indonesia targeted a gathering from the crusader alliance that fights the Islamic State in Jakarta”.

Police confirmed that Islamic State was responsible and named an Indonesian militant, Bahrun Naim, as the mastermind.

They believe Naim leads a militant network known as Katibah Nusantara and is pulling strings from Raqqa, Islamic State’s de facto capital in Syria.

“His vision is to unite all ISIS supporting elements in Southeast Asia, including Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines,” Jakarta police chief Karnavian said.

Islamist militants from those three countries have a record of working together, and several Malaysians are known to have carried out suicide attacks in the Middle East.

ECHOES OF PARIS

Indonesia has seen attacks by Islamist militants before, but a coordinated assault by a team of suicide bombers and gunmen is unprecedented and has echoes of the siege in Mumbai seven years ago and in Paris last November.

In a recent blog post, entitled “Lessons from the Paris Attacks”, Naim had urged his Indonesian audience to study the planning, targeting, timing, coordination, security and courage of the jihadis in the French capital.

The country had been on edge for weeks over the threat posed by Islamist militants, and counter-terrorism police had rounded up about 20 people with suspected links to Islamic State.

There was a spate of militant attacks in Indonesia in the 2000s, the deadliest of which was a nightclub bombing on Bali that killed 202 people, most of them tourists.

Police have been largely successful in destroying domestic militant cells since then, but officials have more recently been worrying about a resurgence inspired by Islamic State.

Many experts believe, however, that Indonesia, a vibrant democracy where the vast majority of Muslims practise a moderate form of Islam, is not likely to be tipped into a cauldron of radicalism.

(Additional reporting by the Jakarta bureau and Manuel Mogato in Manila; Writing by John Chalmers; Editing by Robert Birsel and Mike Collett-White)