Quotes below from full original BBC article here:
“A series of explosions has rocked the Indonesian capital, Jakarta, with gun battles on the streets.
The blasts were centred around Thamrin Street, a major shopping and business district close to foreign embassies and the United Nations offices.
Police say the situation is now under control, with five suspected attackers among at least seven people killed.
So-called Islamic State (IS) said it carried out the attacks, a news agency linked to the militant group said.
Separately, Indonesian police said they suspected a local group allied to IS was to blame.
Indonesian President Joko Widodo described the attacks as an “act of terror”.
“We all are grieving for the fallen victims of this incident, but we also condemn the act that has disturbed the security and peace and spread terror among our people,” he said.
Images from Jakarta have shown several bodies lying on the road outside a cafe, as well as seriously injured people being carried away.
Details remain unclear, but at least one of the blasts hit a Starbucks cafe and a police security post.
It appears the gunmen then holed up in the Djakarta Theater, part of the complex that houses the Starbucks.
Armed police, snipers and armoured vehicles were deployed on the streets of the capital.
Today’s attack on the Indonesian capital is sadly part of a pattern that has been repeating itself in several cities around the world in recent months.
Istanbul, Paris and now Jakarta have all experienced what counter-terrorism officials classify as a ‘Marauding Terrorist Firearms Attack’, or ‘MTFA’ for short.
In other words, police forces have had to react quickly to the sudden appearance of an unknown number of gunmen rampaging through the heart of an urban area, intent on killing as many people as possible and securing themselves maximum publicity.
The aim for the authorities in each case is to bring the situation under control as fast as possible with minimal loss of life, something that UK and other forces have been rehearsing for ever since the disastrous Mumbai siege of 2008.
But preventing such attacks requires better intelligence and needs more effective sharing of information among the people who need to know it.
Indonesia has been attacked by Islamist militant groups in the past and was on high alert over the new year period after threats from the so-called Islamic State (IS).
There has been no confirmation of the group’s claim it carried out the attack, but National police spokesman Anton Charliyan said the group had earlier warned of a “concert in Indonesia” which would be international news.
He said the attackers had tried to imitate the co-ordinated attacks on Paris and there was a “strong suspicion that this is an Isis (Islamic State)-linked group in Indonesia.”
read more at the full original BBC article:
Jakarta attacks: Bombs and gunfire rock Indonesian capital
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