Qualla: 2016 Jakarta Attacks

2016 Jakarta Attacks: Introduction

Thu, 26 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

It took twenty-two minutes. At 10:40 on the morning of January 14, 2016, the first explosion tore through a traffic police post at the intersection of Jalan MH Thamrin and Jalan Kyai Haji Wahid Hasyim, one of the busiest crossroads in Central Jakarta. Then came gunfire. Then more blasts -- six in total, counted by reporters who were close enough to hear each one. By the time Indonesian police shot the last two attackers dead in the parking garage of the Skyline building, four civilians and four assailants lay dead, twenty-three people were wounded, and the Islamic State had claimed its first major coordinated attack on Indonesian soil.

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2016 Jakarta Attacks: Twenty-Two Minutes on Thamrin

Thu, 26 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The attackers struck in the commercial and diplomatic heart of Jakarta, a stretch of Jalan Thamrin lined with luxury hotels, embassies, and corporate offices. Their first target was a traffic police post at a major intersection. One blast went off in front of the Sarinah shopping...

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2016 Jakarta Attacks: The People Who Did Not Come Home

Thu, 26 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The four civilians killed were strangers to one another, united only by proximity. Taher Amer-Ouali, a 70-year-old Algerian-Canadian hearing care specialist, was visiting family in Indonesia when he was shot. Rico Hermawan, 20 or 21, was an Indonesian who had been summoned to the...

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2016 Jakarta Attacks: Directed from Raqqa

Thu, 26 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Jakarta police identified the mastermind as Bahrun Naim, an Indonesian extremist who had relocated to Raqqa, Syria, the de facto capital of the Islamic State's self-declared caliphate. Naim was no unknown quantity. Born in Pekalongan, Central Java, he had been arrested in Solo in...

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2016 Jakarta Attacks: Kami Tidak Takut

Thu, 26 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

President Joko Widodo appeared on national television within hours, calling the events "acts of terror" and delivering a phrase that became the country's rallying cry: "We will not be defeated by these acts of terror." Indonesians adopted it instantly. The hashtag #KamiTidakTakut...

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2016 Jakarta Attacks: A New Kind of Threat

Thu, 26 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

What distinguished the 2016 attacks from their predecessors was the operational model. The 2002 Bali bombings and the 2009 hotel strikes had been planned domestically by Jemaah Islamiyah operatives. The Thamrin attack was directed remotely by an Indonesian fighting abroad under t...

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