Update on Jakarta Bombs: Islamic State Militants Claim Responsibility

Islamic State said its “crusader alliance” has carried out the attack in the middle of a busy central Jakarta commercial hub on Thursday.

“A group of soldiers of the caliphate in Indonesia targeted a gathering from the crusader alliance that fights the Islamic State in Jakarta through planting several explosive devices that went off as four of the soldiers attacked with light weapons and explosive belts,” the group said in a statement.

In photo: Statement of Islamic State group

Indonesian Police spokesman Gen Anton Charliyan said the attacks “imitated the terror actions in Paris.”

Islamic State’s statement said there were 15 people killed, but the official tally from the Indonesian officials is seven – a Canadian, an Indonesia, both of whom believed to be civilians, and five attackers,. More than a dozen were injured, including a Dutch man.

In this series of bomb and gun attacks, at least one of the blasts occurred near the United Nations headquarters on Thamrin Road.

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