By Kanupriya Kapoor
JAKARTA (Reuters) – A suspected Islamic State supporter stabbed and wounded two Indonesian police in the capital, Jakarta, on Thursday, police said, after a series of attacks linked to the militant group.
Indonesian authorities are increasingly worried about a resurgence in radicalism in the world’s largest Muslim-majority country, driven in part by a new generation of jihadis inspired by Islamic State.
The knifeman, who was shot and injured in the attack, was alleged to have put an IS sticker on a building near a police post, TV reports said.
“The perpetrator was shot but he’s still alive,” National Police spokesman Boy Rafli Amar told Reuters. “We suspect the perpetrator is an ISIS sympathizer.”
The bomb squad were deployed to the site of the attack, TVOne reported.
The assault comes after a series of Islamic State-linked attacks starting in January when four militants mounted a gun and bomb attack in downtown Jakarta. Eight people were killed, including the militants.
In July, a militant blew himself up at a police station in the town of Solo, injuring one police officer. Police in August also foiled a plot by IS supporters to launch a rocket into Singapore’s Marina Bay casino resort area using a boat from the neighbouring Indonesian island of Batam.
A knife-wielding Indonesian teen “obsessed” with Islamic State attempted to attack a priest at a church in August.
(Additional reporting by Randy Fabi, Wilda Asmarini; Writing by Fergus Jensen; Editing by Nick Macfie)
