JAKARTA : Indonesia has identified one of five attackers in the deadly Jakarta violence as a previously- jailed militant whose picture snapped amid the mayhem went viral in the country as the grim face of Islamic extremism.
All five attackers died in the coordinated suicide bombings and shootings in central Jakarta on Thursday, which also killed two civilians, wounded two dozen people, and appeared to confirm rising fears of the Islamic State group’s (IS) emergence in the world’s most populous Muslim country.
The attack has been claimed by IS, which has ruthlessly carved out a self-proclaimed caliphate in Syria and Iraq, and Indonesian police have more specifically blamed a Southeast Asian affiliate of the group known as Katibah Nusantara.
Police say they have identified four of the five attackers, and late yesterday released the first name, a militant named Afif. Many Indonesians go by a single name.
Afif, who also uses the alias Sunakim, had trained in an Islamic paramilitary camp in Indonesia’s semi-autonomous Aceh region in 2010, national police chief Badrodin Haiti told reporters.
He was sentenced to seven years in jail for his involvement in the camp but was released last year, Haiti added. He gave no further details. (AGENCIES)
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