JAKARTA (Reuters, AFP) - A suspected supporter of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) attacked police in Indonesia with a knife on Thursday (Oct 20) and wounded three of them, in what appeared to be the latest violence inspired by the militant group in the world's biggest Muslim-majority nation.
Police shot and wounded the attacker after he stabbed three traffic police officers during the rush hour in Tangerang, on the outskirts of the capital, Jakarta. An unexploded pipe bomb and a large ISIS sticker were found near the scene, police said.
"All of a sudden a man brutally attacked our officers with a sharp weapon. The perpetrator was shot in the thigh and leg,"police spokesman Boy Rafli Amar told reporters. "We suspect the perpetrator is an ISIS sympathiser."
The police also said the perpetrator may have been carrying a pipe bomb, along with the sharp instruments used to stab the officers. "The content of the suspected bomb is still being examined," Mr Amar told reporters.
The police officers and the attacker, who was born in 1994 and unemployed, was being treated in hospital.
Mr Amar added that the police would be prepared for the return of ISIS supporters to Indonesia. "We will remain vigilant," he said. "The war there is affecting our youth here."
The bomb squad were deployed to the site of the attack, TVOne reported.
The ISIS-linked Amaq news agency claimed credit for the incident, saying the policemen were wounded by "fighters from the Islamic State", the SITE monitoring group said.
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 ISIS.
The assault comes after a series of ISIS-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 ISIS 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 ISIS attempted to attack a priest at a church in August.
