Indonesian police wound, arrest suspected Daesh supporter in Jakarta

Indonesian police say they have shot and wounded a suspected supporter of the Takfiri Daesh terrorist group, who they said injured several police officers with machetes and threw pipe bombs at them near the capital, Jakarta.

According to Jakarta’s police spokesman, Awi Setiyono, the attacker, identified as Sultan Azianzah, was shot by police in the legs several times after he violently stabbed three traffic police officers, including a local police chief, on a busy intersection in Tangerang, on the outskirts of the capital, on Thursday morning.

Setiyono further said that the 21-year-old attacker, who first stuck a Daesh logo on a nearby traffic police post, also threw two suspected pipe bombs at the police, but neither exploded. He explained that he was a member of a local hard-line group and was suspected of being a Daesh sympathizer.

He said the assailant was taken to a hospital for medical treatment under police custody.

Police seized the sharp knives, the suspected pipe bombs and the Daesh logo sticker from the site of the incident.

Back in January, police officers were attacked by four bombers at a traffic post in central Jakarta. The attackers detonated explosives and shot at people in a district packed with malls, embassies and UN offices and engaged in gun battles with police. The assault, claimed by Daesh, left four civilians and four militants dead. It also inflicted injuries on some 20 other people.

Senior officials in Jakarta believe that roughly 500 Indonesians have traveled to the Middle East region to join the Daesh terrorists and other militant groups. Nearly 100 are believed to have returned to the Southeast Asian country in the past few months.

Indonesia’s law enforcement agencies argue that current laws to combat militancy, put in place in 2003, are inadequate.

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