Jakarta terror attack death toll rises

A victim who was injured in last week's extremist attack in Jakarta has died, raising the overall death toll to eight. Clarifying that those killed included four civilians and four militants, officials added that a victim originally thought to be one of the attackers was actually a bystander.

More than two dozen people, including some foreigners, were injured in the assault - some of them seriously.

"Another victim who was in a coma since the beginning died last night," Jakarta police spokesman Muhammad Iqbal said, in confirming the latest death.

He said the latest victim was Rais Karna, 37, an Indonesian who worked at a nearby bank.

One Canadian was among the dead, the other civilian victims were Indonesian. On Thursday, militants launched a coordinated bomb and gun attack along one of Jakarta's main thoroughfares. The "Islamic State" (IS) group has claimed responsibility for the attack.

Indonesian officials blamed IS for the assault and said the attackers were primarily Malay-speaking Indonesians and Malaysians who were supporting the extremists fight for a self-proclaimed caliphate in Syria and Iraq.

'The mastermind'

Indonesian police have now arrested 12 people in a series of raids across the country. One of the suspects is a man police believe organized the financing for the attack - money, police say, came from IS.

National police chief Badrodin Haiti described the alleged mastermind of the attack, an Indonesian man living in Syria called Bahrun Naim. He said Naim had transferred thousands of dollars to local accounts in the lead up to the assault.

"The total amount transferred was pretty big, but there were several transfers that moved through various accounts before reaching the destination," Haiti said. "We are investigating what exactly the money was used for."

Across southeast Asia several governments of countries with largely Muslim populations say hundreds of their citizens have gone to the Middle East to join IS. They have warned that extremist violence could boomerang back home.

Police said they found evidence the group had planned further attacks targeting security officials and foreigners in other cities such as Bandung.

Indonesia is the world's most populous Muslim-majority country, though the vast majority practice moderate forms of Islam.

bik/se (AFP, Reuters)