Indonesian Police Arrests 12 Over Jakarta Attack

KABUL: (MEP) Indonesian police said Saturday they have arrested 12 people suspected of links to the Jakarta bombings, as the death toll raised to eight.

The audacious attacks by suicide bombers and gunmen on Thursday that targeted a Starbucks and traffic police post in bustling central Jakarta killed seven people, including two civilians. More than 20 people were injured.

An Indonesian man who was shot in the head when two attackers fired into the crowd died at a hospital late on Saturday, Jakarta police spokesman Col Muhammad Iqbal.

As investigators pieced together clues from the radical group’s first attack on Indonesia, neighboring Malaysia said it had arrested a man in Kuala Lumpur who had confessed to planning a suicide attack in the country.

We … have carried out acts of force. We have done searches, we have made arrests and we have obtained evidence connected with the terrorist bombing at Sarinah,” Iqbal told a news conference.

It was the first major assault by militants in Indonesia since 2009 and police said the attackers were tied to the Islamic State group through Bahrun Naim, an Indonesian fighting with IS in Syria.

National police chief Gen. Badrodin Haiti told reporters that arrests were made in west and east Java and in Kalimantan.

Separately, authorities say they have blocked more than a dozen websites expressing support for Thursday’s attack as they try to counter radical Islamic ideology online.