Indonesian police confirm that Jakarta attacker was convicted terrorist who secured early release from prison
Indonesian authorities named the mastermind of the Jakarta attack as Bahrun Naim, who reports said had been living in the IS-held town of Raqqa.
Indonesian authorities said on Friday they had identified one of the attackers responsible for the deadly explosions in Jakarta a day earlier as a former terrorism convict who was released from prison early.
The disclosure came as police beefed up security in government offices, police stations, shopping centres and diplomatic missions across the capital following Thursday’s attack that left two civilians – an Indonesian and a Canadian – and five assailants dead.
One of the assailants was identified as Afif, who was sentenced to seven years in prison on domestic terrorism charges in 2010. The circumstances of his early release were not disclosed.
Photographs showed Afif, dressed in a baseball cap and jeans, and wearing a backpack and shoulder bag, pointing a gun at a crowd at the scene of the attack on Thamrin Street in Jakarta. Police said the backpack contained explosives and that Afif eventually blew himself up along with another attacker during a shoot-out with police.
Police spokesman Anton Charliyan said another attacker, whose name was not revealed, was also a former terrorism convict.
Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim nation, was the scene of several major militant attacks by al-Qaeda-affiliated groups in the 2000s, but Jakarta had not seen a significant attack in several years following a harsh crackdown by police.