Indonesia blamed Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) for an attack by suicide bombers and gunmen in the heart of Jakarta yesterday that brought the radical group’s violence to the world’s most populous Muslim country for the first time.

Just seven people were killed despite multiple blasts and a gunfight, and five of them were the attackers themselves, but the brazenness of their siege suggested a new brand of militancy in a country where low-level strikes on police are common.

It took security forces about three hours to end the attack near a Starbucks cafe and Sarinah’s, Jakarta’s oldest department store, after a team of at least seven militants traded gunfire with police and blew themselves up.

… Said Kumar Ramakrishna, a counter-terrorism analyst at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore: “We know that ISIS has the desire to declare a province in this region.

“The threat of returning South-east Asian fighters radicalised in the Iraq/Syria region (is) another factor of concern.”