The first Islamic State-linked attack on the world's most populous Muslim nation puts more pressure on Indonesian President Joko Widodo to give the military a bigger role and add legal heft to anti-terrorism efforts.
Unlike some countries facing threats from the Islamic State, authorities in Indonesia lack laws to arrest returnees from Syria and Iraq. Giving security forces greater leeway to lock up Islamists is a sensitive issue in the Southeast Asian nation, which until 1998 was a military dictatorship.
Last week's attack in central Jakarta which killed four civilians was relatively unsophisticated. But it brought home to Indonesia — and the region more broadly — the risks of Asians going to fight in the Middle East and then returning skilled and more radicalized. While Widodo, commonly known as "Jokowi," has urged countries to "wage war" against terrorism, he has not moved to bolster laws to tackle the threat.