Suicide Bomber Attacks Police Station in Indonesia, Injuring Officer

A suicide bomber has attacked a police station in Central Java, killing himself and injuring a police officer, according to a local police official.

The attack on Tuesday morning — the last day of Ramadan — took place in the central Javanese city of Solo (formally called Surakarta), the birthplace of Indonesian President Joko Widodo, and comes less than a month after suicide bombings were reportedly foiled in the country’s second largest city, Surabaya.

“I have ordered the police chief to go after this terrorist network,” Joko said at a press conference. It is also reported he still plans to celebrate Eid al-Fitr in Solo later this week.

The bomber was riding a motorbike and blew himself up at the gate after he was prevented from entering the police station, say local media reports. The station is the largest in Solo. The Indonesian police have identified the suspect as Nur Rohman and said the 30-year-old had links with the network of Bahrun Naim, an Islamic State jihadist and suspected mastermind of a terrorist attack in the Indonesian capital in January.

Authorities in Indonesia have been on high alert ever since the Jakarta attack that left eight people dead. There are fears that radicals pledging allegiance to ISIS are opening up a new front for Islamist-inspired terrorism in the region.

One week ago, a grenade was lobbed into a bar in western Malaysia, injuring eight people who had gathered to watch a Euro 2016 soccer match on television. Malaysian police say the attackers had received instructions from a Malaysian ISIS member in Syria.