– ‘This is new’ –
Indonesian police investigating Thursday’s attack on a busy street in Jakarta lined with shopping malls, luxury hotels, and foreign embassies that left five assailants and three other people dead, have pointed the finger at Katibah Nusantara, a militant unit of Malay-speaking IS jihadists.
Yet Kugelman said: “In Indonesia, I heard no indication before these attacks of any form of formal ISIS presence. This is new.”
IS has put on record its allegiance with extremist groups in eight countries – in Algeria, Nigeria, Libya, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Afghanistan and Pakistan – and claims it has directed or inspired attacks in at least 17 countries, killing around 1,000 people.
Security services have long feared that IS will work with the equally bloodthirsty Boko Haram movement, which since 2009 has wreaked havoc as it seeks to impose Islamist rule in northern Nigeria. In May last year, IS accepted a pledge of allegiance from the group.
“For Boko Haram in Nigeria, there is no clear evidence of operational contacts, but there has been a clear sophistication in its attacks,” said Peter Pham, of the Atlantic Council in Washington, suggesting that the IS planners are having some influence.
Pham is worried by IS’s advance into the Sahel region of north Africa. Pummelled from the air by a US-led coalition and by Russian jets in Syria and Iraq, IS has been rapidly spreading into Libya, where affiliated groups have profited from the anarchy in that country to take control, and to secure the considerable oil reserves in some areas.
“We have to bear in mind that Sahel is a very permeable region, so it’s really a concern for the continent,” Pham said.
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