Assailant Stabs Two Police Officers in a Mosque in Jakarta
Jakarta. Two officers were stabbed after a night prayer on Friday (30/06) at a mosque near the National Police headquarters in Jakarta, in an apparent second terrorist attack against the law enforcer in less than a week.
"The modus operandi is almost the same as [the attack] in Medan," National Police Public Relations Head Insp. Gen. Setyo Wasisto said on Friday. He was referring to a knife attack carried out by two Islamic State (IS) sympathizers early this week.
The police, however, have yet to confirm if the attacker in Jakarta is also a member of a terrorist group or not.
Setyo said the the assailant — identified as Mulyadi from Bekasi, West Java — joined the night prayer with about 20 police officers from the Mobile Brigade unit at Falatehan Mosque, located about 75 meters from the police headquarters near busy shopping area Blok M in South Jakarta.
"After the prayer, he suddenly attacked the officers on his left and right," Setyo said.
The attacker shouted "infidel" before attempting to slash the officers' neck and face with a long knife, Setyo said, citing witnesses who were at the mosque at the time. The police shot the perpetrator dead while he was trying to escape, Setyo said.
"The victims got stabbed on the neck and face. They were initially treated at Pertamina Hospital [nearby]," National Police spokesman Brig. Gen. Rikwanto said.
The two officers — identified as Chief Insp. Dede Suhatmi and First Brig. Syaiful Bakhtiar — were later moved to the Kramat Jati Police Hospital in East Jakarta.
Islamic State sympathizers, believed to be acting under orders from Indonesian IS fighter Bahrun Naim, have been targeting police in the past two years in a string of low-level attacks.
On Sunday, two assailants with links to IS, stormed a police station in Medan, North Sumatra, killing one police officer.
Last month, twin suicide bombers killed three policemen at the Kampung Melayu bus station in East Jakarta.
Lawmakers have vowed to pass revisions to Indonesia's anti-terrorism law this year — which have been in deliberation by the House of Representatives since a deadly attack in Jakarta's central business district last year — to grant police more preemptive power to deal with potential terrorist threat.
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