Indonesian police shoot dead Daesh-linked attacker

Indonesian police have shot dead a suspected militant linked to the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group during a firefight at a government office on Java Island.

Police exchanged fire during an hour-long standoff with the man after a small bomb was set off at about 8:30 a.m. (0130 GMT) in a park in the city of Bandung on Monday.

The attacker, who threw a second bomb at officers during the gun battle, fled into a building belonging to local authorities opposite the park and set it ablaze.

Witnesses described terrifying scenes as the attacker stormed into the building brandishing a dagger and began starting fires.

Local TV footage showed heavily armed police firing on the office through clouds of smoke.

The police eventually managed to shoot the militant in the stomach and he died later in hospital.

Police have seized the guns and two backpacks carried by the attacker.

Police said the attacker was a former terror convict from a Daesh-linked network called Jamaah Ansharut Daulah (JAD).

The national police chief, Tito Karnavian, said the attacker had demanded that authorities release his associates from prison.

Meanwhile, authorities were also searching for a second person involved in the assault. Witnesses said they had seen the attacker on a motorbike with someone else before the initial bomb blast.

JAD has been blamed for a series of recent attacks in Indonesia including an assault in Jakarta last year. The  gun and bomb attack, claimed by Daesh, in the capital left four attackers and four civilians dead.

Indonesian law enforcement agencies have arrested hundreds of militants during a sustained crackdown in recent years.

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Indonesia arrests three with links to Daesh terror group

At least 400 Indonesians have reportedly joined the Daesh terror group in the two conflict-plagued Middle Eastern countries of Iraq and Syria. Dozens of the extremists have returned to Indonesia after wreaking havoc in Syria.

Over 30,000 foreign nationals have flocked to Syria and Iraq to fight alongside Daesh extremists or other foreign-sponsored terrorist groups.

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