Jakarta: Indonesian authorities have arrested three men in connection with a twin suicide bombing at a Jakarta bus terminal that killed three police officers, an official said on Friday, as the IS group claimed the attack.
The elite anti-terror squad working with regular police on Thursday detained the suspects around Bandung in the west of Java island and searched their homes, authorities said.
The arrests came as President Joko Widodo called for a plan to strengthen anti-terror laws to be pushed through, to give security forces greater powers to combat a surge in militant plots.
The two bombers attacked the busy terminal in the capital late on Wednesday in a dramatic assault that sparked panic and left human body parts and shattered glass strewn across the street.
Three policemen were killed, while several other officers and civilians were injured in the assault at the Kampung Melayu terminal.
IS claimed responsibility through its propaganda agency Amaq late on Thursday. Analysts have pointed the finger at local IS-linked group Jamaah Ansharut Daulah (JAD), which has been blamed for recent attacks and was recently listed as a terrorist organisation by the US.
The bus station bombing was the deadliest attack in Indonesia since January 2016, when a suicide blast and gun assault claimed by IS in Jakarta left four attackers and four civilians dead.
Authorities on Thursday raided the homes of the two suspected bombers and found religious teaching materials and bladed weapons. Later the same day, they detained the three men allegedly linked to the attack.
The alleged bombers and other suspects were all based in and around Bandung in West Java province.
“We arrested three people in connection with the bombing, in three different locations yesterday afternoon,” West Java province police spokesman Yusri Yunus said, without saying what role the men are suspected of playing.
Widodo meanwhile said plans to bolster counter-terror laws, which were first proposed last year but have stalled in parliament, needed to be accelerated.
The changes would see authorities handed powers to hold terror suspects without trial for longer and make it illegal for Indonesians to pledge loyalty to militant groups such as IS.
“I have ordered the chief security minister to immediately complete the revision of this anti-terror law, so that law enforcers have a solid basis to act and especially to prevent (terrorist acts),” Widodo said.
Police have said they believe that IS is linked to the latest attack but have not said which specific group may have been responsible.
Jakarta-based security analyst Sidney Jones, who heads think-tank the Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict, described the IS claim of responsibility as “very credible” and said she believes JAD’s Bandung branch was behind the assault.
There are similarities between Wednesday’s bombing and previous attacks involving JAD militants. Police believe pressure cookers packed with explosives and shrapnel were used in the Jakarta attack, and a similar device was used in an assault by a JAD militant in Bandung in February. — AFP
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