It began with reports early today by Indonesian police and state news agency Antara of a series of explosions followed by gunfire outside a mall in central Jakarta. Since then the dismally predictable details have come out that this was another ISIS op.
Most pressing question of the day: What do they have against caffeine addicts and devourers of tasteless, fiber-rich muffins?:
A team of suspected Islamic State [jihadist]s staged a gun-and-suicide bomb assault on a Starbucks and police post in central Jakarta, killing at least two in the worst attack in the Indonesian capital since 2009. Five attackers were also killed.
The assault began mid-morning when a suicide bomber blew himself up inside the Starbucks near the Sarinah shopping center, close to the United Nations office, military chief Gatot Nurmantyo told reporters. [Jihadist]s then opened fire and detonated further bombs, including one outside a nearby police post, he said.
One of the dead was a Canadian citizen, the other an Indonesian, he said, adding at least twenty others were injured, including five police. The attack was “very likely” linked to the Islamic State or its members who had returned home, said Sutiyoso, head of the country’s intelligence agency. The Islamic State claimed the attack, saying it targeted foreign nationals and security forces, jihadist monitoring group SITE Intel said on Twitter, citing an Islamic State-affiliated news agency.
Further reports confirmed that the targets were, indeed, Indonesian police:
The head of the parliamentary defense commission, Mahfuz Sidik, said the primary targets appeared to have been police.
"We need to investigate whether this is a retaliation against a number of arrests done by national police of several people suspected of being involved in terrorism, or if there are other motives," he said.
Nearly two dozen suspected [jihadist]s have been detained in recent weeks, including a number of ethnic Uighurs from [Red] China, with explosives, weapons and a suicide vest found, said Keith Loveard, head of political risk at Jakarta-based security company Concord Consulting.
Indonesia has been a front in the war with Islamic Fundamentalism for decades. The worst Muzzie attack there came in 2002, when the group Jemaah Islamiyah bombed and attacked bars and nightclubs and two tourist resorts on Bali, massacring 202 people, including eighty-eight Australians. And looking at it from a strategic point of view, Indonesia is the most populous Muslim nation on the planet, and does lay astride the Staits of Malacca....
....through which a goodly portion of the world's oil shipments flow. Topple that country into the jihadist camp and the "Crusader" world's problems would grow immeasurably worse, given how weak U.S. naval strength is to keep the world's sea lanes open.
But then we don't have to worry about Barack Obama letting Indonesia fall - he's got his idolatrous statue to protect, right?
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